The Fallen Courageous
by fermorge
Summary: After an encounter with the Weasley twins Hermione finds the relationship she didn't realize was missing. But when society's views object, what effect will be had on their happiness? Fred/George/Hermione, lemons, TWINCEST, EWE, Fred alive because I say so
1. Chapter 1

The Second Wizarding War had been over for nearly five years. In that time, Hermione had become estranged from her best friends, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. After Voldemort fell, Harry and Ginny had retreated somewhere deep in Wales, out of the eyes of the public. Ron had let his deep-rooted jealousy and feelings of inadequacy arise of being the least popular member of The Golden Trio rise to the surface, and he had basked in the media, eventually becoming keeper for the Chudley Cannons. His relationship with Hermione fell apart, and after his sell-out and Harry's self imposed isolation, Hermione had been left mostly on her own. Something had gone wrong with the spell she had cast on her parents and she had been unable to lift the block on the memories of her. The only thing she had now was her half kneazle Crookshanks, and even he acted like he had better uses for his time.

She had gotten a job as Head Potioneer for the Experimental Magic Department at the Ministry, and she was in Diagon Alley searching for the ingredients that would need replenishing from her stores. _Chizpurfle fangs, Horklump, Billywig sting slime…_

She opened the door to Slug and Jigger's and was surprised to see a familiar mop of fiery red hair arguing with the shopkeeper.

"Yes, he _knew _the side effects of the Euphoria Elixir… Verity just mixed it wrong and he's too euphoric. I told you I needed peppermint and you gave me spearmint. His gastrointestinal tract is doing great, but I could do without the singing. _Tell me how to fix it._"

"Mr. Weasley, I will not have you in here insinuating that I do not know the types of mint from one another. I'm afraid that you will have to leave if you are not here to purchase something."

"Tell me, Mr. Jigger, what types of mint my chewing gum would be then."

The Weasley that Hermione believed to be Fred exhaled sharply in Mr. Jigger's face. "Err… Fresh mint?"

Fred laughed sharply and rolled his eyes. "Winter mint. Now, I need to know how to fix my brother."

Mr. Jigger shook his large head slowly. "I'm sorry. There is nothing you can do to help Mr. Weasley."

Hermione stepped forward. "Fred, I think I can help you."

The tall man turned around. "Hermione! Hi! And it's George actually. Fred is tittering around the shop. Last I saw he was singing and waltzing with a rather alarmed looking Verity. But I digress. How do you think you can help the cur?"

Hermione thought up a way to help her old friend. She hadn't actually had an idea in the first place, so she was unsure of why she had spoken up.

"What about… a draught of peace? It could calm and relax him to about normal sorts."

George, although he now looked rather more like Fred, seemed to think for a second. "Alright, we'll try. But if you bugger it up and leave him asleep forever, I'll come after you myself."

She nodded once. "Okay. Lead the way."

George gave a sarcastic salute to Mr. Jigger and led her out of the store.

"George, if you don't mind me asking, what happened to your ear? It's…"

George looked down at her and smiled. She wasn't sure when the twins had grown into their long arms and legs, she definitely noticed how much taller than her George was. "Normal? Yeah. I don't really go out in public much anymore if I can help it, and when I do I usually take a polyjuice potion first. When I already look so much like Fred, people hardly notice anyway. Fooled even mum once."

Hermione thought about that for a moment. She supposed it did make sense after all. There was no reason that he should be self conscious about his ear, as everyone knew how he had received the curse, but it was understandable that it was a sore spot for him. "So _that's_ why I thought you were Fred!"

George rolled his eyes and lifted her slightly by the waist to help her over a particularly large puddle. "Or, maybe, you just can't tell the difference between us without a glaring physical deformity."

Hermione gave a rather uncharacteristic laugh and looked him incredulously. "You may have everyone else fooled, but you and Fred are actually rather easy to tell apart. I'm sure that I could tell the difference between you two in the dark, even if you glamoured your ear back to normal."

He gave a dubious laugh and opened the door to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. "We'll test that later. Now, the ingredients cupboard is through that door. I think we have everything for the draught. I'm going to go check on Cheerful in there."

Fred Weasley was sitting on the floor in front of the open window of their apartment over the shop in nothing but his pants waving his arms as though conducting an invisible orchestra, wand in hand. "Georgie! Listen! The birds! They follow me!"

George realized that the birds did in fact seem to be tweeting in harmony to the swings and flourishes of his brother's wand. There was a steady stream of magic poring from the tip of it, and he realized what exactly had the birds crowing.

"Forge, I brought you something." Fred smiled up at George from the floor with an excited smile of his lightly freckled face.

"Oh, Gred, what is it? I love it when you buy me presents! You're the best big brother I could hope for! Oh, I could kiss you!"

George rolled his eyes. "Do us a favor and don't. And don't let Bill and Charlie hear that little declaration of my fabulousness. They're like to get jealous. But I am rather grand, ain't I? I found a friend down the alley and she's here to see you."

Fred squealed from the floor and attempted to stand before falling over and giggling. "A friend? Is it Ron? Is it ickle Ronniekins?"

George tried his hardest not to laugh and brushed his hair off of his forehead. "No, Fred. I said _she_, didn't I?"

Fred smiled at him from t floor in a way that suggested that he didn't see George at all and was looking through him instead. "I heard you right as rain, brother. Is it Ronnie?"

George fell apart and laughed at his brother who still hard the wondrous look on his face as looked as though he was about to break out into song about bluebirds and sunshine at any moment. "No, it's not Ron! It's Hermione Granger."

Fred squealed again and clapped his hands, looking and sounding for all the world like a small child. "Oh, I missed her! Her meddling and stealing our wares I'd never miss, but other than that... She can be down right _mean_. But I miss her in the summer!"

George couldn't take it and had to get away from his overtly cheerful brother. "I'm going to go check on her, I'll be back. Stay, you crazy git."

Fred made a big show over freezing and not moving a muscle. That is, until he sneezed, fell over again, and began to laugh.

George slipped from the room and went to find Hermione.

Hermione had just finished the potion and was pouring it into a flask when she felt an arm around her shoulder. "How goes it, Granger?"

She smiled and screwed the lid on the container. "It's done."

George threw her a slightly wary look. "And you're positive that you did everything right? It won't hurt Fred? Twelve clockwise stirs and all that?"

She nodded before answering absentmindedly as she scourgified the cauldron and knife she'd been using. "Yes, and it's seven." She tucked her wand in her sleeve as she finished. "There. Now, are you sure you trust me?"

George looked into her eyes for any sign of doubt in herself. Seeing none, he nodded. "With my life. And Fred's too, as it would seem. _On with it._"

She followed him up to the apartment where she assumed Fred was. Walking up the stairs, she heard something that made her choke back a laugh.

"_She held me spellbound in the night, dancing shadows and firelight, crazy laughter in another room and she drove herself to madness with a silver spoon wooo hooo witchy woman see how high she flies wooo hooo-"_

"Fred! Here, trust me on this." George grabbed his brother by the hair and pulled his head back, his mouth hanging open, and poured the contents of the flask down Fred's throat and they waited. Fred's wide eyes slid shut and he slid from George's hand, sliding to the floor. George pulled his wand from his sleeve and spun to face Hermione.

"I'm going to kill you myself, you stupid little-"

"Oh, for Merlin's sake Gred, I'm fine. But down your wand you moron."

They both looked at the wizard lying on the ground. "If that's what it feeling like to be Looney Lovegood..."

"Fred!"

Fred smiled at Hermione from his spot on the floor. "What? She's bloody crazy. Quite pretty, but completely nutters."

Hearing Fred call Luna pretty sent a weird feeling through Hermione's stomach. She wasn't sure why she really cared, and after all, she hadn't seen Fred and George for years, but she had found the two of them attractive when they were at school, and had used every excuse to talk to them when they were in school together, including constantly getting on them for their Skiving Snackboxes, which she had actually thought were a great idea.

Looking at Fred's long legs stretched out in front of him, and that lazy smirk on his and George's face had Hermione finding herself feeling warm.

Fred cocked a finger at her in the 'come hither' motion, and she crouched down on the floor and sat down cross-legged beside pushed himself up onto his elbows and put his index finger under her chin and tipped her face up. "Thank you for saving me Hermione. Do you know how terrifying it is to be so… insanely cheerful?"

Hermione laughed and he smiled at her. "You're positively beautiful when you do that. You didn't do that much when you were with Ron."

Ah, Ron. Hermione and Ron had had a relationship lasting about 2 years, in which time he had changed significantly. He was no longer the shy, loving guy that she had thought she had fallen for years earlier. With his fame, came notions of his importance, and a slightly anger at Hermione for wanting to stay out of the public. Unfortunately, even after the war, she was still Hermione Granger, the _mudblood_. When her relationship with Ron had started to wear on, she had little reason to smile, especially when the news came out that he had been getting reacquainted with his Hogwarts era girlfriend, Lavender Brown. And while she had spent a great many months mourning the loss of her relationship, she eventually realized that she was much better off without him.

She felt, rather than saw, George sit down behind her. "He didn't deserve you. He was always coming home and whining about all these things he claimed you did to ruin him. '_Hermione says that I shouldn't talk to reporters about our sex life. It doesn't make sense, I can do as I please!"_

She grimaced at the memory of Mrs. Weasley flooing her the next day to ask her exactly where she thought she got off telling her Ron what to do. Mrs. Weasley had been way too quick to detest Hermione when Rita Skeeter's articles came out, and she had seemed to grasp for any excuse to tell the young witch how she was lacking in quality since then.

The brothers seemed to realize exactly where her mind had gone, and tried to do something to distract her. However her thoughts remained on how Mrs. Weasley had quite publicly made comments about how Lavender was the girl for her youngest son, and how all other relationships he'd had previously were just fun little trysts for him to get out of his system before settling down.

She let her eyes drift down to her hands which she nervously clasped in her lap. The sudden movement uncovered her watch and she gasped at the time. "Oh! I have to get going! I've got to go in early to work tomorrow so I can give a presentation on the benefits of Gillyweed instead of enchanted SCUBA gear. It was good to see you two."

She stood and they stood with her, first Fred then George pulling her into a hug. Fred lightly ruffled her hair. "You need to stop acting like you won't see us for ages. You can come back anytime, we'd be happy to have you."

She nodded and stepped towards their floo before heading to her home. Once at home, she barely had time to pull off her potion stained robes before there came a knock on her door. She quickly crossed the floor and stood on tiptoe to look out of the eyepiece, and drawing her wand before opening the door when she saw no one there.

On her door was a red slip of paper that she recognized from stories she'd heard her parents tell her of their younger days.

**NOTICE:**

Due to the inability for management to enter your apartment on the 15 of this month for the monthly inspection, you have 3 days to secure another place of residence and vacate the premises. Your residence will be leased to another at the end of the 3 days.

Management.

Hermione groaned at hit her head against the door. If only she hadn't seen Fred and George, she would've been able to be there for the monthly inspection. Due to all of the protection, charms, and wards she had placed on her home since the war, it was impossible for anyone except her to get in without her accompanying them. Ron had tried once after their break up, and that had led to an uncomfortable splinching accident.

Frowning, she immediately sent all of her things to pack themselves into some conjured boxes, before going down to street level to buy a Muggle newspaper. She quickly ran back up the stairs to her apartment before flooing to Diagon Alley to quickly buy a few Wizarding papers as well. When she got back home, she used her wand to circle places she felt would be habitable for her and Crookshanks. Unfortunately, all of the places in the Muggle newspaper had a no pets policy or they weren't big enough to house her makeshift potions lab. A quick glance at the Wizarding paper told her much the same story. When she thought she had found the perfect place, a byline to article caught her eye and caused her to sigh. _Muggle-Borns need not apply. _

With the majority of her belongings packed, Hermione shrunk all of the large boxes to fit in one smaller one. She crawled into bed, but sleep did not come easily to the young witch that night, with thoughts of where she was going to live and the Weasley twins running rampant in her mind.

TBC

**Review and tell me what you think. If you like it, tell me so. Hate it? Tell me that too. **


	2. Chapter 2

If someone had asked Fred and George Weasley who was the more attractive brother, each would have said the other. When looking in the mirror, all George could see was his missing ear and the scar tissue where it used to be. He could hear out of the left side, but if someone was talking quietly or he wasn't paying complete attention, he often had to ask people to repeat themselves. His missing ear was a sore spot, literally and metaphorically. As far as he cared, he was more unattractive than his brother due to nothing but the missing ear. Women would claim that it didn't bother them, but upon weaving their hands into his hair during more intimate moments, they would suddenly realize that they couldn't deal with his 'deformity'.

But Fred would say that the more attractive brother was George. George may have been missing his left ear, but he was the nicer, more sensitive of the brothers. As hard as Fred might try, it was difficult for him to stop joking around and take things seriously. George never had trouble listening to people and was always able to give sound advice to people who needed it. Fred envied his brother's easy manner with people and their emotions, and although Fred was the one who spent the majority of time in the front of the store, George was better fit for the job.

Twins were always close, but Fred and George were closer than most twins were. Most things that were considered taboo in the Muggle world were considered slightly more appropriate in the Wizarding world, but there were still quite a few things that were frowned upon, incest included. The two of them had always felt that there was something missing when they were each in bed with a witch.

After a night of drunken debauchery, they had discovered that they were, in fact, unable to actually achieve to reach orgasm unless it was caused by the other or they were sharing a witch. Fred had lost count of the amount of times he had lied at school and told a girl that he was just stressed. George usually just pretended to come. He still found it odd that no one had noticed that he never came.

Since the night of fooling around with Angelina, the two of them had messed around with each other surprisingly often, and both of them enjoyed it more than popular society would ever believe. They had eventually blurred the line between brotherly love and the way they felt for each other. However, they usually ended up losing the witch they wanted because she ended up feeling uncomfortable about the twins' closeness.

_She was stretched out on the bed, and Fred was on top of her, his hips pounding against hers. George was kneeling beside them, his long cock in his fist. George cast a quick lubricating spell on Fred, before aligning himself with his entrance. She froze and looked up at the two men above her. "That's… weird."_

_Fred froze and slowly pulled out of her. George groaned and his head fell back. "We told you that we did… things."_

_She shook her head quickly. "Yeah… but I thought you meant to me, not to each other. Like… I knew what you were saying, but this is just too… weird."_

_She stood and started putting her clothes on. "I'm going to go. This is just too bizarre for me. I'll… I see you around."_

_She rushed over to the floo and jumped in, shouting out the name of wherever she was going off to. Fred smiled at his brother and leaned in to kiss him. "Now…" he whispered, nipping at the other man's ear, "I want to feel you."_

The day after seeing Hermione again, Fred was watching George lay sprawled out on the floor on his stomach with a quill and parchment. Fred came over and crouched next to him putting her hand on his back. "What are you drawing Gred?"

George blushed and pulled the parchment out of view and pulled it under his body. Fred used his body weight to roll him over and grab the parchment. On it was a very detailed drawing of two men with fiery red hair thrusting into the same curly haired witch.

Fred smirked and grinned lasciviously at George. "Is this our dear darling innocent Hermione?"

George shook his head. "All representation to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental."

Fred smiled at his brother and George looked away, not letting his eyes meet Fred. "I think it is. I think you like her, dear brother."

George's head shot up and he looked at Fred with that sarcastic look on his face. "_I_ like her? I know you feel the same way about her that I do. I remember our sixth year at Hogwarts quite well. '_Oh, Hermione… Oh, yes. That's right… just like that baby'._ You should be a little bit quieter when you jack off in a room full of people."

Fred blushed and tackled his brother. Pushing him into the carpet, he let his hips drop, grinding his body against George's. "I bet you wish she were right here, don't you Georgie? Bet you wish she was between us, trapped with no where to go… but down…"

George looked down at the red hair contrasting against his black trousers as Fred undid the button. Fred nuzzled him through the blue fabric of his pants, placing teasing kisses on his cock through the thin fabric. "You do wish she was here, don't you? You want her to touch you like this?"

George arched his back to pull off his sweater when Fred took him into his mouth. He fell back, hitting the ground with a thud before his hands tangled themselves in the coppery hair identical to his. Fred took the cock in his mouth as deep as he could take it, before swallowing around it a few times. George moaned Fred's name as his hips bucked into his mouth again. One of Fred's long pale hands came around to press of his brother's perineum, and George came with loud moan down Fred's throat.

"Well that didn't take long at all, now did it then?"

When Hermione woke up the day after seeing Fred and George again, the birds were chirping and sunshine was coming from her open window. She rolled over in bed with a smile to get up for work, when the lack of _things_ in her room caught her attention.

Right.

The same protection charms that were supposed to keep her safe, ended up to her eviction. After a quick shower and change of clothes, she scanned the Daily Prophet to find that there were in fact, no new housing options.

With a tired sigh, she walked over to her floo, and after a precise cry of 'Ministry of Magic', found herself in her place of employment. It took her a small while to reach her office, and when she did, she found her supervisor waiting for her.

"Hello, Miss Granger. How do you do?"

She smiled politely at the man that she couldn't stand and slightly nodded her head. "Well, and yourself?"

The man gave her one of those simpering looks usually saved for a great aunt or third cousin and nodded back. "Never better. I regret to inform you that your department is merging with the Department of Misuse of Magic. As such, the head of that department who has been here for 37 years longer than you have, will be taking control on the new department. Effective immediately. That is to say, unfortunately, that you no longer have a job here at the ministry."

The man waved his wand and all of Hermione's things packed themselves into a brown cardboard box. The box flew over to her, and she reduced its size and slipped it in her robes. She turned and walked out the way she came after a necessary but polite goodbye. She immediately flooed to the first place she could think of.

Fred and George Weasley were at a standstill. Neither of them had been very good at potions, and they usually had someone else do their potions work for them, as they were much better with the charms and enchantments that their work required. Rosalind, the women they usually outsourced their potions to, had recently come down with a rather bad case of death, and could not work for the twins anymore.

It just so happened, that the day they got that bit of information was the same day that Hermione was laid off from her job. They were mulling around a store that didn't open until 10, attempting to discuss what they were going to do with their potions work now, when their floo activated.

"Fred? George?"

"Hermione?" George called. "Is that you?"

She came around the shelves stocking the WonderWitch products and made her way over to them. "Hey. So, I've got great news."

Fred looked up from the beetle that had once been a rubber chicken at the witch he had been trying to avoid looking at to prevent distraction. "And what might that be, Fair Lady?"

"I got evicted, and I lost my job!"

The two brothers looked at each other with a feigned look of wonder on their faces. "Well, that's not great news at all!"

"I think she may be mistaken. Although, she has always been a bit mental."

She grimaced at the slight insult and elbowed the nearest brother, who happened to be George, in the ribs. "Nice. But it would appear that my life has completely gone to pot, and I just wanted some cheering up. But as it would seem you two would rather focus on my wording…"

She turned to make as though heading back to the floo when she felt to sets of arms grasp onto her shoulders.

"Oh, no you don't." They said together, turning her back around and pulling her back.

"It just so happens, that we need a new Potioneer to help us create and test our newest products."

"We can pay you 2 galleons an hour? How does that sound?"

Hermione's face paled. "2 galleons? I was only making about a galleon and 3 sickles at the ministry."

Her arms wrapped around the two tall men who hugged her back. "Thank you."

The two Weasleys smiled at each other, then at her. "No, thank you."

She reluctantly let her arms down, and leaned against the counter. "Now, if only to find somewhere I can live now."

Fred grinned at her and leaned next to her on her left, and George took his lead and did the same on her right. "Well it just so happens, that we have an extra room upstairs. Does it sound fair that you can have it if you trade us breakfast in the mornings?"

Hermione's eyebrows raised and her mouth fell open. "Breakfast? That's all you're asking?"

George nodded, smiling slightly. "Yeah. We're not exactly morning people, and neither of us are all too chipper until we've eaten and had a cuppa. We usually just skip breakfast altogether and just pump the caffeine straight into our veins."

Hermione smiled and nodded. "Do you two like pancakes or waffles?"

**A/N According to the Lexicon, a galleon is 10.7 USD.**


	3. Chapter 3

Hermione had been living with Fred and George for nearly a month the first time she heard them. It was past midnight, and although she'd been hearing noises from Fred's bedroom for hours, she had assumed it was the radio or an experiment or something. But as the time went on, she became unable to deny that it was anything but the two brothers together.

She could make out the two different personalities. She was assuming that their personalities in bed were the same or similar to the way they were outside of it. Using that reasoning, she figured that George was the low, murmur that she could hear, and Fred was the loud and exuberant one. What she had no way of knowing, however, was this: she was completely wrong.

The one area of his life, besides the joking, where Fred Weasley was able to show some control and command, was when he was being intimate with someone. For all his usual sensitivity, in bed George was extraordinarily responsive to nearly any kind of sexual stimulation, and often spent the majority of his time in a slight state of arousal.

But one thing that was most certainly shocking to Hermione, was purely how long the obscene noises had been coming from Fred's room. For the better part of 3 hours, the noises had continued. Now, if there was one thing that the women of the Wizarding world knew the Weasley men for, it was their inability to last very long in bed.

But unbeknownst to the majority of people, Fred and George had, once again, found their way out of a … _sticky_… situation. After some research and planning, the two of them had come upon some information about a Muggle exercise called Kegels. After the two of them regularly did the exercises to strengthen their pelvic floor muscles, they were lasting much longer, their cocks had a tendency to get harder than they ever had before, and they were both able to achieve orgasm without ejaculation. Meaning, that they could reach the culmination of their pleasure, and keep going… to please the witches of their choosing and themselves, time and time again.

Finally, however, after some especially loud moaning of one brother and the grunts of another, the two were apparently finished, and Hermione was able to get some sleep.

The next morning when she went down to make breakfast, she found herself slightly unable to look them in the eyes. She had always had her doubts about how close the brothers really were, and several rumors during her 3rd year had made them out to be sharing a bed. None of their roommates ever alluded to the brothers doing anything but sleeping, but not long after those stories came out, they had stopped. By the next year, however, the two were back in the same bed.

She would never admit it, but the thought of being with the two of them sent waves of heat through her. The thought, to her, was forbidden and taboo, but so extraordinarily enchanting. She had always wanted to be with two men at once, and the twins were two examples of the finer points of the male form. They were tall and lithe, with a build that only hinted at muscles until they were in use, and then the sinewy shapes could easily be seen though their magenta robes.

Hermione realized that, despite all the social problems, she didn't really fault the twins for the things they did behind closed doors. It's almost like when two best friends from infancy eventually get married. The two had always been within an armslength of each other as far as she had known, except for when George lost his ear.

Realising that she had spent the half hour se usually gave herself to cook bacon, eggs, and waffles for the boys thinking about them in bed, she threw a kettle eon the stove to wait for it to almost reach boiling and popped some bread in the toaster. Since she had been there she had gone shopping a few times, and the boys' kitchen had been kept full of food. Fortunately, they wouldn't touch something unless they knew for sure exactly how delicious it would be, so many of the things she bought had been kept unopened. For now.

To make up for her lack of food preparation, she had decided to give the boys Nutella on toast. George, and then Fred, came shuffling, eyes shut, into the room, somehow finding their chairs without sight. Adding a tea bag to each of their cups, she poured in the hot water, as well as milk for George and lemon and a teaspoon of honey for Fred. They each pressed a kiss to her forehead like they did every morning, and she was once again surprised at the minty breath she could smell on each of them. They couldn't open their eyes, but they could brush their teeth?

The toast popped up and she spread Nutella on the four pieces of toast before plating it and cutting it for them, Diamonds for George, rectangles for Fred. "Thanks love," they said quietly, sipping their tea and opening their eyes.

George was the first to lift a piece of toast and look at the spread between them. "What the devil is this?"

His question caused Fred to do the same. "What on… is it Marmite?"

Hermione shook her head and spread some on her own toast. "No. Nutella. I honestly cannot believe you've never eaten it. Go on, then."

George shook his head. "Never. It looks like Marmite. _Hate_ Marmite."

Hermione looked him in the eye and gave him a pointed look as she took a deliberate bite of her toast. "If you don't like it, I'll… let you use me as a Guinea Pig for a month."

The two looked at each other, then at her, before nodding. "Deal." They said together.

They hooked their elbows and tapped their toast together.

"Cheers."

They each took a reluctant bite, and George almost slid from his chair. He let out a low groan, and Fred smiled and took another bite. "Good heavens, Hermione. What in gods name is in that stuff?"

She smiled and took a sip of her tea. "It's chocolate and hazelnuts. I take it that you two approve?"

George was gripping the counter as he took a few deep breaths. "Bloody hell. I nearly just busted a bullock right here in this chair."

Hermione let out a low laugh, not realizing that he was completely serious. Fred grinned a whispered, "Yes, because you didn't do that last night."

She laughed again and she knew at that moment, that they knew she knew. She smiled at Fred and he pressed two hands into the sides of her face. "Bloody beautiful." He tipped her face closer to his. Their lips were about to touch when she heard a voice behind her. "Did you know that we've liked you for years?"

The voice didn't come from the direction she expected it from. It wasn't Fred who had said it, but George. George put his hand on the side of her face, pushing his brother's away, and tipped it to his. He kissed her in a way that was languidly intense. Fred chuckled behind her. "Oh you goddamn cockblocker. I was going to do that."

George sucked her lower lip between his before biting on it, first gently, then harder. Fred let his head fall to Hermione's neck and he sucked on her pulse point before nipping at her neck.

He whispered against her neck and she felt his words vibrate against her skin. "We've wanted you for so long. Will you let us have that?"

She nodded quickly, and felt two smiles against her skin. Her chest was heaving, and George's face slid down the other side of her neck to fasten on her nipple through her shirt. Fred slid his face up to his and he kissed her passionately and fierce. The way his lips felt against hers felt amazin. One of the twins muttered a spell and her clothes disappeared from her body. George's mouth against the flesh of her breast felt fantastic, and she arched into his mouth.

She moaned, and they both pulled away from her. "Hey, Forge, Hermione told me a while back that she thinks she could tell the difference between us in the dark, even if I glamoured my ear."

Fred laughed and as she was still leaning against him, she felt the vibration through her body. "Well, Gred, let's test this. Come on, Hermione, let's go back to bed."

George wrapped his arm around her waist and led her the George's room. "We'll be back."

Fred and George walked into the bathroom adjacent to the room and then came back in a few minutes. Neither of them was wearing clothing, and they both had left ears. The two crawled onto the bed with her and they kissed their way down her body. George stopped at her breasts and Fred continued down, rubbing his fingers against her clit. She snaked a hand into each of their hair. Since the war, George had grown his hair out to cover his ear, and Fred had done the same to make him feel more comfortable.

She pulled George's face up from her breasts and gave him a long, slow kiss. "George… you taste like mint, chocolate, and milk."

His eyes shot open. "Lucky guess. There is no way…"

Fred took that moment to pull her pants down her legs. "Hermione… you smell so good. Can I taste you?"

She nodded and he buried his face between her legs, both of them letting out a moan at the contact. George sucked his lower lip between his teeth as he reached a hand down to wrap around himself. Hermione had had a long relationship with Ron, and while they had had a lot of sex, none of it was very good, and the only time she'd come when she was with him was when finishing herself off when he inevitably fell asleep afterwards. Part of her lack of pleasure was the fact that although he was long, he was lacking in girth what he had in length. However, Fred and George were so big around that she suspected she wouldn't be able to wrap a hand completely around without squeezing slightly. George's hand and closely trimmed curls were making his cock look even larger, and judging by the feeling on her calf, Fred was stroking himself as he worked her over with his tongue.

She could feel herself getting closer to coming and bucked her hips down to grind on Fred's face. She could feel him smirk, and then his tongue was inside of her, his nose was bumping against her clit, and his index finger was rubbing over the puckered flesh of her arsehole. She cried out and moaned as she felt the first orgasm given to her by someone else. She could feel Fred murmuring against her skin.

"Oh Merlin… so delicious…" he spoke up, and his words vibrated on her thigh. "You have the most delicious cunt I've ever tasted Hermione. That was… without words. George… you are missing out something fierce."

George smirked at Fred before grabbing his hair and pulling him to him. "Why, why, Freddie… such a messy eater…"

George's long pink tongue snaked out of his mouth and he licked the traces of her from his brother's face. "You were right… that _is_ good."

George pulled him in completely for a kiss, and Hermione could see his tongue probing the inside of Fred's mouth searching for more of her. He pulled away from Fred, a string of spit connecting their mouths before Fred broke it by licking his lips. George wrapped his hand back around his cock and got up onto his knees.

"I have an idea. Now… you two are going to do exactly what I tell you to, okay? First, Hermione, have you ever sucked a cock like this before?"

She shook her head, her hair whipping around her. "No… but I should be able to… in theory."

George chuckled and Fred asked, "In theory? A book? It's going to take more than research to handle us, dearest."

Hermione shook her head and smiled. "My mum and dad were dentists. I had more dental exams than most of the people in my primary school combined. I don't have a gag reflex anymore. _And_ I can fit my fist in my mouth."

George smiled, and Fred moaned, his hand trailing down his body to grip himself. George's hand came down to slap his away. "No, let our pretty little witch take care of you. Suck him, Hermione. Show him what you can do."

She swallowed, and poked her tongue out, licking around his shaft before bringing her tongue up to his sensitive head. The precum there tasted like ginger and cinnamon, and she swirled her tongue around him trying to get as much of it as possible. George sat up onto his knees and pulled Fred and Hermione onto theirs sides, Fred's cock not leaving her mouth. George laid down behind Hermione, bringing his face to where his brother's had been before. His tongue immediately went to sucking on her clit, as he pumped two fingers in and out of her. She could feel movement above her, and looked to see Fred stretching a hand out to grasp George at the base. The way he brought his brother's cock to his mouth suggested that it had been something they had done many times before.

Hermione couldn't help letting out a moan, and Fred's hips bucked into her mouth as she fit the last inch of him into the warmth of her mouth. Fred moaned in return, causing George to grunt into her flesh. She brought her hand from her sides and used one to fondle Fred's bollocks, the other one pinching her left nipple.

She raised her hand, slightly pulling his bollocks away from his body before using her tongue to flick at his frenulum. George added another finger to her, as she head Fred repeatedly swallowing around him. After lightly tugging on Fred's bullocks again, she pushing them towards his cock, letting them roll around in her hands.

A series of moans and grunts came from him as he spilled into her, and all she could taste was musk and ginger. Fred's orgasm started a chain reaction, and his spasms made his grasp the base of George's cock which made had him shooting his load down his brother's throat. As Hermione quickly realised, it was George who was loud when he reached the point of no return, but as his face was buried in her folds, his moans and cries sent pleasure straight through her as she came on her face.

The three of them weakly crawled to the head of the bed, too hot to touch each other, but still very close nevertheless. George was licking his fingers clean and wiping his face on his hands, which he would then lick clean again.

Fred chuckled before smoothing Hermione's hair off her forehead with a smile. "That's our Georgie. Tries to act like he's in control, when really, he's a _screamer_ who gives in completely to his pleasure."

One of George's long hands came around her body to smack Fred in the face. "Oh, did that hurt? Sorry."

Hermione felt him smile as he pressed his face into her shoulder blade, lightly kissing the hard line of her bone.

"Hermione, I hope you realize that this was more than just… a distraction… for us. Merlin, we've watched you for years. Any other witch would have figured out how we felt… but you always seemed to be so oblivious to us. And then…"

"You turned your attention on Ron, and we figured that we never really had a chance…"

"So we tried to forget you…"

"But we couldn't." They finished.

Fred pressed a light but loaded kiss on her lips. "You know how some young girls get about celebrities? Every time they see him in the rags they freak out and have to read the article?"

George brought his lips to her ear, "You know how every time they read about someone he's supposed to be dating they get that sick feeling when the realize that they never have a chance with this celebrity?"

Fred rested his head on her chest exhaled slowly. "What we're trying to say, Hermione, is that you,"

"Are the celebrity,"

"To our pitiful,"

"Pathetic,"

"Depraved,"

"Lonely,"

"Ah, no, can't forget lonely. Ah, miserable,"

"Teenage girl."

She burst out in tears, and alarmed the twins untangled their limbs from hers and put a little bit of distance between them and her.

"Er, Hermione?" Fred whispered to her, and her sobs got louder.

"Love, what'd we say?"

Hermione looked up before giving the boys a watery smile. "How pathetic would you think I am if I said that _that_ was the most romantic things someone has ever said to me?"

George chuckled. "I think the point Fred and I are trying to make," Fred wrapped his arms around her and his twin took suit. "Is that we are the pathetic ones in this situation."

**You like? Review, please.**


	4. Chapter 4

And just like that, Hermione Granger found herself in a relationship of sorts with Fred and George Weasley. While they weren't officially in a relationship, there was an unspoken agreement that none of them would see other people. Fred and George had turned slightly more domestic and one of their new things to do was to follow her around whenever she had to make a foray into Muggle London. On the day in question, they had convinced her to take them grocery shopping with her.

Hermione was pushing one of the bright green carts down the aisles, with George flanking her on her left, Fred on her right. "Fred," Hermione asked, "Do you have the list I gave you? Read it to me hun."

Fred patted his pockets and pulled out a neatly folded sheet of paper. "Okay, milk, eggs, bread, pasta, assorted vegetables and fruits, sausages, hot and cold cereal, tea, ramen noodles, meat, and cheese."

Fred stopped and George and Hermione stopped too and looked at him. "What's wrong?"

"You didn't put Nutella on here. That stuff is delicious and we don't have anymore at the flat."

Hermione felt her mouth fall open. "What do you mean we don't have anymore? I just bought an entire thing of it?"

"George and I… well… we…"

George put a hand on Hermione's back lower back and leaned down to whisper in her ear. "Let's just say… we used it last night when you didn't feel well. I'm just going to leave it at that. At it tasted even more delicious than usual, let me say that. Fred and chocolate is the most… _scrumptious_… thing you could ever taste."

Fred blushed and slapped at his arm. "Oh, Georgie."

Hermione laughed and pulled a pen out of her purse adding Nutella to the list. "Is that better?"

Fred and George nodded quickly and grinned at her. "Perfect. But I think that Hermione flavored Nutella would be just as delicious."

She smiled and winked at them. "Well we'll just have to buy a lot of it then, won't we?"

Fred and then George ducked down and each pressed a light kiss to her lips. "Well boys, you two push the cart, and I'll load it up."

As they walked past the dairy section and she grabbed two large cartons of eggs, a few gallons of milk, before stopping to look at the cheese. "Do you two have a cheese preference?"

"Mozzarella."

"Muenster."

She smiled and nodded at them, putting their corresponding cheeses in the cart as well as some Gouda for herself. "Fruits and vegetables next. Is there anything you two lovely men don't like?"

"Brussels sprouts," they said together.

"Peas,"

"Squash,"

"And certain types of beans."

She smiled. "So that covers horrid vegetables that I wouldn't be cooking anyway. Are there any fruits you hate?"

The boys shook their heads and smiled. "We love fruits."

With the two of them behind her making comments about the person who names fruits, she filled the cart with fruit and vegetables. "Kumquats? Hermione, what the hell is a kumquat?"

Fred smirked and leaned in closer to the two. "That's what happens when you and Hermione finally fu-"

Her hand flew around and she slapped him in the stomach. "Oh, shut up. And a kumquat is like the most delicious midget version of a lemon and an orange. I think you'd like them. Throw some in the cart. And stop with the innuendos."

Fred smirked and placed a kiss on her neck. "I only do it because I care about you."

She smiled and wrapped her arms around Fred's waist. "Oh, but of course, dearest. Now, we need bread. White or wheat?"

The two shrugged. "For the rest of the groceries, just do whatever you want. We helped. Sort of. We trust you."

She smiled, and with the two of them trailing behind them, she collected the rest of the groceries fairly quickly without stopping to ask their preferences. The two of them were still trailing behind her muttering about the names of things, and were getting farther and farther behind her. She was standing in the meat department trying to decide if she wanted beef, pork, chicken, or all three. Someone came up to her and took the pork chops out of her hand.

"I bought some of these same cut last week and they were a little… off. They're so thick that the outside was tough by the time the center was done. Do yourself a favor and don't buy those."

She looked up at a tall man standing next to her. He looked like the most tragic mix between Gregory Goyle and Dean Thomas. She immediately started feeling uncomfortable and glanced around for her boys. She couldn't see them after a quick scan of her surroundings and instead slipped her hand into the pocket of her pants, grasping a hold of her wand and doing a quick nonverbal spell to make the boys' wands heat up in their pockets.

"Who do you think you're looking for? You don't look at all like you want to talk to me?"

Hermione shrugged and did some quick thinking. "I was checking the price of roasted chicken."

The man seemed to believe her, and shrugged lightly before again giving her that seedy grin. "So, beautiful, how do you feel about maybe coming over to my house for dinner tonight so I can cook you some pork chops that are actually good? Tender and… juicy."

She tried to edge away from the guy and get farther away. "Uhm, I don't _think_ so…"

"Oh, no, really. I insist. I think dinner would be quite… _titillating. _You should. I think it would be great."

She suddenly felt two long arms wrap around her waist. "Sorry, she's accounted for."

"Well which one of you? I'm sure that I could convince her otherwise."

They each pressed a kiss into her hair and glared at the guy. "Both of us. Now, you have two choices: either you leave our girl alone, or we fuck you up."

Hermione had to resist the urge to laugh at Fred's wording of his threat, but at the same time she completely appreciated the effort the two were making to make sure she was safe. "Both of you?" he snorted. "So it takes two of you to please her? Oh baby, I'm sure that I could give you more pleasure than they could. It might take two of them, but trust me baby, you'd only need one me."

Hermione rolled her eyes and put a hand on each of the arms wrapped around her waist. "It doesn't _take_ two of them. I could have settled with just one of them. But that's _exactly_ what it would be. Settling. I'm with the two of them because that's what I want. They can make me happier than any one man ever has. The two of them are the biggest sweethearts I know. There is no one who could ever compare to the way they make me feel."

She grabbed each of their hands and walked over to the cart. "Clever little trick with your wand. We knew that was you asking for help."

She smiled and they headed to the check out. After paying for the groceries they headed to Diagon Alley where they flooed to their apartment above the store. "Sorry about that guy Hermione. We understand if you don't really feel that way. We shouldn't have done that."

Fred shook his head quickly. "Speak for yourself brother. I most certainly would not understand. Why would she say anything but good things about us, the men who opened up our homes to her?"

She smiled at them and put a hand on one of each of their cheeks. She rested her forehead against George's. "I hope that both of you know," she pressed a kiss to his lips before moving her forehead against Fred's. "That I meant every word I said." She kissed Fred too, and they smiled.

"Really?" asked George. She kissed each of them again.

"Yes. You are both very important to me. I… care about you more than I thought I ever would."

"Well, Gred," asked Fred, "How do you feel about showing our girl just how much she means to us?"

George wrapped his arm around Hermione's shoulder, pulling her into his chest. She pressed her lips against his chest in a soft kiss that made him squeeze her closer. To her, George always smelled like chai tea and musk, while Fred smelled like ginger and cloves.

"Forge, I think that sounds like a marvelous idea." George said with a smile as he rubbed her back.

Fred pulled out his wand and sent the rest of the groceries to their cabinets. When it was done, he pushed George down onto the couch with his back against the armrest. George pulled Hermione down to sit between his legs, and Fred leaned against the other armrest spreading his legs to rest outside of George and Hermione's. He pulled her legs up to rest in his lap and pulled off her shoes and socks.

Fred grabbed her left foot in between two large warm hands and set about massaging it, pressing his thumbs into her arch. George let her curly hair down out of its bun and ran his fingers through it, combing out any tangles before using his blunt nails to lightly scratch at her scalp working from the front, to her temples, to the nape of her neck before starting over.

She let out a moan and relaxed further into the capable hands of the two men. "I used to think you two lacked the ability to do anything but dick around, but oh have you proven wrong."

Fred let his hands slide up her foot to massage her calf as George's hands moved to her shoulders. "And there is no better joy in life than proving Hermione Jean Granger wrong," muttered George with a kiss to her shoulder.

She chuckled and let her head fall back against his shoulder as Fred let her left leg fall from his hands so he could move to her right. She quickly curled her toes, popping all of them.

"That's weird, Hermione." She shrugged at Fred as he looked at her with a look of confusion and awe.

"Not that weird. Been popping my toes for years."

The two shrugged and Fred went back to massaging her foot while she let her newly abandoned left foot slide to his crotch. He threw her a curious look, and she gave him an innocent smile, her eyes widening slightly. He chuckled before resuming his previous activities. She lightly pressed her foot into him and found him already hard. Hermione started rubbing his length with her foot and was happy to feel his hips thrust against her foot as his breath began to come faster.

"Not that I'm –oh- complaining, but why are you doing this?"

"Because, I've been so busy working on that new formula that I haven't been able to touch you like this in what feels like forever."

George shifted his hips behind her, pressing his cock into her lower back. She moaned and George twisted her head around, giving her a kiss that made her arch her back.

"Baby, I know we haven't gone… all the way yet. And if you don't want to, you need to say so now."

Hermione moaned again and pulled Fred up to her, unbuttoning his shirt. "I _think_ that I'm ready to take that step. How do you want to go about this?"

"Well," Fred started, "how do you feel about the two of us at the same time? Because if you don't want that then either you need to pick one of us, or we can take turns with you."

She turned around and unbuttoned George's shirt as well. "Like… Anal? I think that sounds…" she pressed a kiss to George's neck, kissing from the hollow of his throat to the hollow under his ear. "Hot."

George moaned from underneath her, sending vibrations through her body as he pulled his and Fred's shirts all the way off, pulling her up to her feet. Sweeping her up into his arms, he carried her to her bedroom, placing her gently onto her back on the bed. George lay down next to her and pulled her onto her side as Fred settled down behind her. She could feel two equally hard cocks pressed against her thigh, one in the front and one in the back. Fred nuzzled her neck and grinded himself against her.

Fred reached around her to grab George's cock through his trousers. His hips bucked hard and he moaned, pressing himself into Hermione. She unzipped their trousers and pushed them down, and they finished the job by kicking them completely off.

"Who's going to…?" asked Hermione as the two men pondered each other. While they were easy for her to tell apart and she rarely thought of them as one entity, sometimes the fact that they were identical suddenly hit her and caught her by surprise. This was one of those times.

"I think," began Fred, "That George should be the one to do it. I mean, he's gentler that I am, and I would hate to hurt you."

She rolled over and placed her hand on Fred's cheek, pulling him in to kiss his forehead. "I don't think you could hurt me even if you wanted to. But I appreciate the gesture. Well, George," she rolled back over to face the appropriate man. "Have you ever done this before?"

He smiled and nodded toward his brother. "I think it will be a little bit different, just because… well… you're so more petite than we are. I'll try not to hurt you."

She nodded and grabbed her wand, conjuring up a jar of lubricant. "I trust you."

He smiled at her again and kissed her before rolling her over. He traced the tip of one of his long fingers across her slit and she moaned, pushing down against his hand. He rested his head on her shoulder, before suddenly slipping in two fingers. He began to thrust and twist his fingers, and she let out a sigh at the feeling. His hands slid away and she heard him unscrew the lid to the jar she had conjured.

The head of Fred's cock replaced George's fingers, and he used one of his hands to bat it against her clit. She wrapped her arms around his back and he ducked down to kiss her. She felt two sensations at once. She felt the shockingly warm and slick finger of George press against her back entrance, rubbing slightly and massaging the tight ring of muscle, and she felt Fred press his rather sizable cock into her body. It had been an alarmingly long time since Hermione had been with a man like that, and the last one she'd had was no where near as long _or _as thick as the Weasley twins.

After giving her a moment to adjust, Fred began to slowly thrust, rolling his hips each time he entered her, going deep and hard. George's finger slid away and when it returned it was slicker than before. This time, he lightly inserted the tip of one of his fingers, and she groaned.

"Oh, Merlin. George… that feels so good. Please, more."

She felt his other hand slide down from her shoulder and felt a quick flash of something wet against her lower back and realized that it was the leaking head of his cock as he touched himself. He let his finger slowly slide all the way into her, and she was surprised at how good it felt. She had always heard anal sex to be this horrible thing that only gays and perverts liked, but she was quickly beginning to see the allure.

At feeling her enjoyment at this, he slid another finger into her, lightly scissoring them. Somehow, she had gotten so caught up in the sensations of George's fingers in a place she never had thought she would want them that she had forgotten about the other brother inside of her. She quickly realized that that had been because he had stopped moving to aid in George's finger of her rosette.

But he began to thrust again, his hips flush against hers. "George, I need you. I want to feel both of you, I can't wait any longer."

She felt him lubing himself up behind her, and felt the head of him against her. Fred spoke up from in front of her, sounding surprisingly gentle. "Bite my shoulder if you have to."

She nodded, and George slowly eased himself inside her. It didn't hurt as much as she had been expecting and the burn was actually welcomed. After a few minutes to let her get accustomed, both of them men began to thrust in her with more earnest.

Hermione was the first to reach her release, with George following after her as her incredibly tight hole got tighter around him with a loud cry. After he came, George slowly slid out of her, and Fred put his hands on her hips, rolling them onto his back. Gently helping her along, he started to bounce her up and down, making her ride him. He snapped his hips up into her and they both let out low moans. When Fred came and Hermione came again, he pulled her off of him. After casting a scourgify on all of them, she snuggled up close to both of them and they wrapped their long arms around her waist.

"Thank you."


	5. Chapter 5

A/N Thank you guys who reviewed, I really appreciate it.

The three of them were laying in bed wallowing in their post-coital bliss. While they were all relaxing in bed, George cleared his throat.

"I have something to say. To both of you. It's okay if neither of you feel the same way I do, but I want you both to listen. Fred… you've been my brother my whole entire life. Whenever I thought I was alone, I had you there. You've always had my back. Our relationship changed recently but I want you to know that if it doesn't work out the way we want it to, that I will always, first and foremost, be your brother. Fred, I love you. I want you to remember that. And even though I don't love you just as a brother anymore, that doesn't mean that I will never stop being your brother.

And Hermione, I've liked you in one way or another for years. Both of us have. You're brilliant, and funny, loyal and all around perfect. And-"

Hermione opened her mouth and George slid his hand to cover her mouth and kissed her forehead. "I know you're not really perfect Hermione, but you are as close to it as any I have ever met. But you helped Harry for years, even when it got… hairy… Anyway, you are always there for people who need it even when you don't need to do it. Hermione, I love you. I know you might not feel the same, and I for once don't know about Fred's feelings, but I do know that I love you."

Hermione began to cry, and he crushed her to his chest. Fred, who was lying behind her and had been silent the whole time, scooted closer to the two and wrapped his arms around the both of them. "I love you. Both of you."

Hermione cried harder and rolled around in their arms so that she could wrap her arms around Fred. Her tears were hot against his skin and he pulled the three of them as close together as we could get them. He could feel, rather than hear what Hermione said against his skin. "What, baby?"

"I said that I love you two."

Fred smiled and gave her one of the sweetest, gentlest kisses she had ever felt. "You know," he started to say, "during the war, when I got disarmed by Rookwood and was staring down the business end of his wand, thoughts of the two of you ran through my head. I thought about all of the devious things we got up to when we were younger, Georgie. And Hermione… I thought about how if the two of us talked more I probably wouldn't be in the position to die. I heard him say… something. And then there was that flash of green light that comes from the killing curse, and then the wall collapsed between us."

Fred was a remarkably closed off person, and neither George or Hermione had heard this story before.

"A piece of brick or something hit me, and when I came to, Rookwood was laying dead a few feet in front of me, and his wand was pressed against his temple in a deliberate way. I don't know why, but for some reason he let me live. He killed himself, instead. I came very close to dying that night. I came very close to dying without ever telling the two of you how I felt about the two of you."

Hermione had stopped crying, but after hearing what Fred had said, she began to cry again. "If you had died…"

George wrapped an arm around Hermione's waist and his other hand went to snake itself into Fred's hair. He curled his hands in her hair and ran his fingers through it, smoothing down the fiery strands. "But it's okay, he didn't die and we still have our boy. Not knowing where you were during the battle was just painful. There were times where… I just never thought I would make it out to see either of you. And Hermione, we owe you a thank you. If not for you we would have all been dead. We were blood traitors and we would not have lasted very long if Voldemort had come for us. You saved our asses countless times."

Hermione wiped her eyes and sniffed. Burrowing herself into George's chest. "I love you two so much. Georgie…?"

George rubbed her back and looked down at her. "Yes, love?"

"I think we need to show our boy how happy we are to have him still. Roll onto your stomach hun."

Fred rolled onto his stomach and crossed his arms, resting his head on his arms. Hermione sat on his lower back. Put her hands on his shoulders, pushing into his skin she began to massage his skin. "Here's your reward for all the things you've ever done for us."

She leaned into each stroke of his back, and he moaned into his arm. She bared her knuckles and used them to massage a particularly tight spot and he moaned again, he back arching up slightly. George slid down the bed and used his hands to massage the back of Fred's thighs. Hermione eventually worked her way down to his lower back and George had worked his way down to his feet. The two flipped him over, and his cock was standing straight up. There was a light sheen of sweat on his body and a flush in his cheeks.

Inside his head, Fred was screaming loudly. He was so aroused he felt like his foreskin would split, and George and Hermione were still giving him those annoyingly light touches. All Fred wanted to do was sink himself into one of them. At this point he didn't care if it was Hermione's sopping wetness or George's tighter dryness. Just before he felt like he would explode on his stomach, a well lubed George sat down on his cock. He thrusted up into George, feeling a thrill run through him. The both of them let out a moan and Fred reached over and grabbed Hermione's hips, settling her down onto his face.

Fred slid his hands up and down her thighs, pulling her hard onto his face. He swiped his tongue through her before slipping it inside of her, his nose bumping into her clit. He moaned, muffled against her hot flesh. She braced her feet against the bed on either side of his head and lifted up slightly to keep his tongue inside of her. She got up entirely onto her knees, and pulled herself off of his face.

Fred groaned, licking his lips and the skin surrounding his mouth. "Fuck, Hermione! I was eating that!"

Fred's hands slid up toward her. "Give it back, Hermione."

She laughed and slowly lowered herself back onto his face. "Careful love, if you suffocate then I'll put every last detail of how you died in the paper."

"Oh, but what a way to die." He muttered into her skin. George caught his attention by rolling his hips. Fred's hands left Hermione's legs and one went to George's waist while to other grasped his erect cock. There was a brief pause again when Hermione got up again. Fred groaned again but she just turned around so she was facing George. Lifting her hair off of her neck, she leaned down and pulled Fred's hand off of George, sinking her mouth down onto George.

"Oh, yeah," George whispered. "Do you know how hot this looks? Damn… that's right, Fred. She tastes good, doesn't she?" he grasped his balls in his hands and massaged them while he bounced up and down on Fred. "She's all pretty, and pink, and delicious. Doesn't it feel so good when she's got that mouth wrapped around you? If she keeps it up just like that she'll end up swallowing all that I have to give."

Hermione moaned around him and Fred started to snap his hips up into George. There was a noise outside of the door and all three of them turned to look for the door. George pulled Hermione's head back to his cock, "It's probably Crookshanks. Ignore it."

Fred moaned against Hermione again and he ran a hand down her back to squeeze her ass. George circled his hips causing the tip of Fred to hit his prostate. George threw his head back, his long red hair falling into his face. George began to grind down hard, savoring the feel on Hermione's mouth on him and the feeling of Fred inside of him. "You feel so good Fred. Fucking stretching me… fill me with your cum, baby. I want to feel you let yourself go inside of me."

"Holy…shit."

The three of them whirled around to the door, after hearing the voice.

"Ron?"

The youngest Weasley brother was standing in the doorway, a bouquet of flowers in hand and a shocked look on his face. "What the hell are you doing?"

George climbed off of Fred and Hermione stood, wrapping the sheet around her body. Fred and George each grabbed a pillow and covered themselves. "Look, Ron, I can explain," Hermione started to say.

"No! What the hell? You can't have me so you use my brothers? What the hell is wrong with you?"

Hermione shook her head, begging with him with her eyes. "Please, listen to me. Just… listen. I can explain, Ron."

Ron shook his head and threw the flowers at the ground. "No, you can't. I showed up here just so I could tell you how much I loved you. Things didn't work out with Lavender and I realized that I want you back. But I didn't realize you were such a… slut."

Fred and George stood from the bed and pulled on their trousers. "Don't talk about Hermione like that, you fucking git."

George zipped up his trousers, then went to the closet in the bedroom and grabbed a button down for Hermione before tugging the sheet off of her and holding it up so she could put the shirt on without Ron seeing her. She smiled at George, keeping eye contact with him as she slowly buttoned the shirt up, lightly fondling herself through the thin fabric. George smirked and handed her the boxers he'd had on earlier for her to put on as well, and once she was dressed he dropped the sheet and lightly kissed her.

Ron scoffed and George smirked at Fred. "Hey, Forge, you've got a bit of… Hermione all over your face."

Fred smiled at the two of them and licked it off. Ron clenched his fists and stepped toward the three of them. Fred pushed him back and stood in front t of George and Hermione. "Don't fucking touch them you dumbass. You had something great, and you ruined it. You could've had Hermione, but you became more obsessed with your image. We chose her over our image. We have way more to lose than you ever did, and we're with her anyway. You need to just leave."

Ron ignored his brother and turned to Hermione. "I loved you Hermione. And I think that with a little bit of time, if you come back to me, I can love you again. You can forget all about them and we can just go back to the way things were."

Hermione took a step toward Ron and Fred and George grabbed onto her arm. She shook them off and took another step towards Ron.

"Ronald Billius Weasley, if you had showed up two months ago, that would have made me jump at the opportunity to go back with you. I thought I loved you, but I realized that I actually don't. I love Fred and George. The two of them go out of their way to do things to make me happy, and they've stood up for me in public, which is something that you have never done. No matter what happens, you always just blamed it on me. And I don't know what lies you told your mother, but because of her everyone thinks that I'm a controlling slut."

Ron gave a harsh laugh that didn't sound quite like himself. "No, Hermione. People think that you're a slut because you are. I just caught you having sex with my brothers. You couldn't have me so you settled for these two morons."

Before Hermione could say anything, Fred coughed from behind her. "Technically, Ron, George and I were the ones actually having sex. And-"

Ron sneered at the two of them. "I always knew something was wrong with you two. How long has this been going on? Years? Mom is going to hear about this."

George grabbed his wand out of his pants pocket and pointed it at Ron. "Sorry about this, Ron. But I can't have you doing this. Obliviate."

Ron suddenly looked around. "Why aren't you two wearing shirts?"

Fred and George shrugged. "Got an experimental potion on them. Anyway, it was nice to talk to you. We'll see you tomorrow for dinner at the Burrow."

Ron vaguely nodded and walked out into the sitting room, and Hermione, Fred, and George all followed him. He stepped into the floo and cried out, "The Burrow."

Hermione turned to look at Fred. "Dinner? At the Burrow? I can't. Please love, don't make me! Your mom hates me. She absolutely loathes me. I can't do it. She'll tear me to pieces. I love you two so much, and she'll convince you I don't."

Two twin pairs of arms wrapped themselves around her, pulling her against them as they stepped closer. "Hermione, we know that our mom is crazy. In fact, I'm pretty sure that we can take some of the blame for that. But there is nothing she can do to make us love you any less. I think she'll react to the news if we tell her ourselves. We need you to be there with us. The Obliviate on Ron is not going to last very long. We need to get to her before he does."

George kissed her neck and squeezed her harder. "Now, we just need to decide how much we're going to tell her. Are we only going to say that we are each dating Hermione and make it sound like we're sexually isolated, or are we going to tell her that the two of us are intimate as well."

Hermione shrugged. "I think, that you should tell her that you are each separately dating me. That way, you can keep your relationship with your mother intact. I will take the fall to make things easier on you."

Fred kissed he forehead and made an annoyed sound in his throat. "No. We can't do that to you. She will tear you apart and I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe. If she says something and you get uncomfortable to the point that you feel like we need to leave, I think we should have an agreed upon signal. What do you want to have as our getaway phrase?"

"Skiving Snackboxes."

The two brothers chuckled and gave her one last squeeze before their arms fell away. "Well, now that our night is successfully ruined, let's just go to bed."

Hermione nodded at Fred and shuffled off to the bedroom. The two men pulled off their trousers and each grabbed a pair of boxers from George's dresser. The three of them curled into bed, with Hermione in the middle. She was facing George and Fred was pressing himself up against her back. She ran her fingers down George's chest, lightly

Twisting her fingers in his chest hair. She rested her head in the nook between his neck and shoulder and he grasped her hand in his, while Fred wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. After a few minutes of laying there in silence, one by one, they drifted off to sleep.

"Do you think my dress is long enough?"

Fred chuckled and placed a kiss on her mouth. "You look beautiful. I think knee length is plenty long enough."

George smiled and kissed each of them in turn. "You both do. Everything will be okay. Trust me when I say that. If you start to feel overwhelmed, just say the word and we will get you out of there. That's all you have to do."

She gave each of them a hug and ran her hands down her hair and over her dress, smoothing down the curls and wrinkles.

"Alright, grasp a hold on my arm," said Fred. "I'll apparate you in."

There were two cracks and Hermione blinked. They were suddenly in the sitting room in the Burrow. "Fred, George! Oh, my sons! It's been far too long since the two of you came back home for dinner. And oh, I've just missed you two so much It doesn't look like you've even been eating and you two need a haircut, good heavens it's getting so long, and what the devil is Hermione Granger doing in my house?"

Fred sat down on the couch and pulled Hermione down with him. George sat on the other side of her. "Well, mom. That's what we're here for. You see, we're kind of dating Hermione."

"Dating her?" Mrs. Weasley shrieked. "This little bint is the reason your brother lost Lavender. He's been sneaking around with her for months! She has destroyed any chance of happiness that Ron had. She will destroy you two, too. And you deserve nothing but the best, why can't you see that she's going to just break you and ruin your lives like she did to Ronald?"

"Mom," said George. "I'm going to stop you right there. She's our girlfriend. I love her. We love her."

Molly Weasley laughed, "This is ridiculous. Does she have you under the Imperius? I know you two, and you're not stupid. You need to realize how bad she is for you. She told all sorts of lies to Ron, and she will lie to you as well."

"May I say something?" Hermione asked. Molly threw her a glare.

"No, you may not. You are just going to destroy my family aren't you? Is no one safe? Who's next, Hermione? Is it Charlie? Bill? Maybe even Arthur?"

Fred stood. "That's enough, alright? I love Hermione. Hermione loves us. She didn't lie to Ron, she didn't lie to you. She's a good woman, Mom, and I cannot have you saying anything like that anymore. See, this is why George and I don't come back more often. This exactly. We don't want to listen to your crackpot theories about her character. Imperius? Really?"

"She's a whore. A good for nothing slut. Did she even tell you that she was with both of you? Did she tell you or leave you to figure it out on your own?"

George stood as well said, "Fred and I were together as well. Okay, Mom? Fred and I were in a relationship of our own and we began one with Hermione as well. All of us are together. Hermione didn't coerce us into anything, okay?"

Mrs. Weasley stood as well and glared at the boys. "That is sick. You are sick. You are going to burn in hell. You're brothers. Twins! You are the same person. That's narcissistic. Why are you doing this? Why? What on earth convinced you two that this was okay?"

There was a brief moment of silence before they heard Hermione whispering something. "What?" Asked Fred.

George sat back down and brought his ear closer to her mouth, before jumping back when she exploded.

"Skiving Snackboxes. Skiving fucking Snackboxes!"

A/N Review, please. I read every review, and it makes me very happy to read them.


	6. Chapter 6

George wrapped his arm around her and apparated them back to the flat before Hermione could even realize what had happened. He vaguely heard Fred apparate into the room before he walked into a room deeper in the space. He stood in the sitting room with a crying and struggling Hermione in his arms, as she tried to push him far enough away that she could get out of the embrace. But George was wont to just hold her until she calmed down, and she eventually relaxed into him, still crying.

He rubbed her back with one of his hands and whispered words of relief into her hair.

"It's okay, Hermione. It will always be okay. We're not going anywhere. Fred and I will be here until you order us away. And even then, you might have to have someone else come and get rid of us."

She pulled him tighter and burrowed her face into his chest before pulling back slightly when she realized she was most likely ruining his shirt. "It's okay. Just relax, Hermione. If you need to cry into the shirt, do it. It's just a shirt. It's replaceable. _You_ aren't."

Fred walked up to them then and put a hand on his brother's cheek, forcing George's eyes up from Hermione to meet his. "Are you okay?"

George nodded and sighed. "Yeah. What she said… it hurts. It does, I can't lie. She's our mother. But… you're more important than that to me."

Hermione started to cry louder and both men looked down at her. "Love, what's wrong?"

"I'm being so selfish! The two of you may as well have just lost your entire families and here I am crying because she just hurt my pride!"

Fred got down on his knees so that she could more easily see into his eyes as he put his hands on her waist. "Hermione, you're not being selfish. Nearly every word that she said tonight was carefully selected to do the most damage to you, and I'd be more worried if you didn't hurt at least a little from that. Nothing she said can just be forgotten or pushed away. Even if she hadn't said the things she said to George and me, I wouldn't have been able to forgive her for the things she said about you. Are we clear?"

Hermione nodded and wiped her eyes before Fred stood and pulled her into a tight hug. "I'll talk to her someday after she's calmed down. I think that she's just afraid of us getting hurt, and that once she sees that everyone is in this for the long haul she'll calm down. C'mon, you two. I drew us all a hot bath so we can just put this out of our minds for now and just focus on ourselves."

Hermione grabbed one of each of their hands and walked to the bathroom, the two following closer than they actually had to. The bathroom at the flat was rather average, with the exception of a very deep, very large porcelain claw foot bathtub. The tub was so outrageous in size, that when Hermione sat in it she could not see over the side. The tub was about halfway full with steaming water and sandalwood smelling bubbles. The three took their time carefully undressing each other before they slipped into the tub, Fred and George at opposite ends and Hermione settled in George's lap. Looking at the boys, the reason for the tub's size became apparent. Their long legs made a longer and deeper tub a necessity, as she realized that the tub looked like the perfect size for them. "How tall are you anyway?"

Fred moved his legs in the water to twine them with George and Hermione's before slipping under the water to wet his hair. When he came up he pushed it out of his face before answering her with a smile. "About 192 cm. Why?"

She shrugged. "Well, I'm only about 161, so I was just asking. You two feel like giants compared to me."

"Besides," Fred said, "I think George is a bit taller than me anyway. When we're actually standing straight and fairly close together, it makes it easier for people to tell us apart."

Hermione shook her head slightly as she leaned into George's chest. She was happy for the completely menial change in conversation: she didn't have to think about the things Mrs. Weasley had said about her. "I still don't know how people mix you two up. At this point, I don't even notice that you're twins anymore. You _are_ two different people; you act like two different people, and just because you happen to share most traits doesn't mean it's hard to tell you apart."

"Such as?" George prompted with a low whisper.

"Well for one, you two smell different. That's one way I can tell you apart without looking. And another is that if you came up behind me and hugged me while I had a head cold, I could tell you apart by the way you hold me. Fred, you wrap your arms around me in a way that feels like you want to hold me tighter but you're not sure if you can, so your hugs get steadily tighter when you see that I'm alright. George, you hold me close. Not necessarily tightly, but you hug with your whole body. You'll align our pelvises, lean in slightly, and rest your head on the top of mine.

When you're describing your days, Fred will get very excited very quickly and talk in a rush of words, eager to get out every detail since I last saw him. George likes to only say the important parts, and then ask how I was. And I'm sure you two already know the differences between yourselves in bed."

The each shook their heads with twin devilish smiles.

"Oh no, you don't. You were just getting to the good part. On with it!" chucked Fred.

Hermione smiled at him before continuing as George lightly drew his fingers from her shoulder, down into the water to the tips of her fingers, and back up. "You almost switch personalities when you're getting intimate. George suddenly becomes this assertive, passionate person –not to say that you aren't usually, but I assume you know what kind of passion I refer to now- and Fred is suddenly the most attentive person in the world, making sure that every care of my own is tended to before he gets his. Now, do you finally believe that you aren't truly the same?"

Fred smiled and leaned forward, pulling Hermione slightly off George's lap and into a kiss before doing the same to George. "I don't know. I think it may take a bit more convincing."

A few weeks later, Hermione woke up and went into the kitchen to see a frowning George. She stood up on tiptoe to kiss him and wrap an arm around his waist. "What's wrong?"

He kissed her forehead and wrapped a long arm around her shoulders. "Fred had to go to a conference. He never tells me before hand. Found a letter on the table this morning. I don't go with him anymore: I haven't since the war. I know that's where he actually is, because we always get a huge influx of interest after he gets back. Looks like it's just us for a week."

Hermione raised an eyebrow at her man. "Why aren't you with him? Not that I'm complaining."

George tucked the hair on his left side swiftly behind his ear, displaying the scarred flesh there. Hermione grabbed his hand on squeezed lightly, as he shot her a relieved smile. "You do realize that no one thinks less of you because of that, right?"

George shrugged, taking a sip of his tea. "I suppose. It's just a sore spot. Like you with your teeth."

Hermione's hand shot up to cover her mouth before she remembered that that had been fixed years ago. "See what I mean? No one else cared, but you were self conscious about them."

She wrapped her arms around his waist, and was rewarded by him setting down his cup of tea and doing the same. "Why doesn't he tell us before he leaves? I would've liked to have kissed him goodbye."

George smiled, kissing the top of her head. "Because if I knew where he was, I would be owling a couple times a day or placing floo calls to check in on him or ask his advice. I think I'll be okay with you here though. I'll feel less alone."

Hermione squeezed her arms together and pulled him into her. "Well, I'm sure I can think of something the two of us could do together."

George grinned at her and slowly backed her up until her back pressed against the kitchen table. Putting both his large hands on her ass, he lifted her up onto the table, kissing her until she couldn't breathe, and pressing his body into hers. They kissed for a few minutes, and she could feel him starting to grow against her stomach.

She pulled off her tee shirt, and George grinned at the sight of her going braless. He grinned at her and she smirked back, slipping her hands under the back of his shirt to feel his skin. He leaned into her, and pressed his face into her neck to place kisses on her pulse point. The hard line of his cock was pressing hard into her stomach as he ground himself into her, and Hermione pushed him away slightly to remove her shorts before pulling him closer. He placed his lips back on hers, and she could feel him smiling against her mouth.

His hands slid down to the tie on his pajama bottoms and he undid it, his cock slipping free off the cotton. He slid one hand down to grasp himself at the base, guiding himself through her wetness. He smiled as he coated the underside of himself and her hips bucked off of the table. He gently pushed her down so that her back was resting on the table, and he pushed into her smoothly.

She let out a keening sound and George let his hips still and his hands slide up to cup her breasts. He pinched her nipples, and simultaneously pulled out before pushing forward again. He was long and thick, marvelously thick, and Hermione felt that if he got any harder her eyes would roll back into her head far enough that she could see her own brain.

George was letting out hot little grunts with every thrust, and she moaned loudly every time he entered her. He knew the difference between a woman faking and one really enjoying herself. And if he was any expert, he definitely was making her enjoy herself. The only sounds in the room were the wet sounds of him entering her, her moans of approval and arousal, his grunts and groans, the sound of flesh hitting flesh, and the sound of the kitchen table scooting slightly across the floor with the particularly hard thrusts.

Hermione felt the rope of pleasure begin to coil tightly in her, and George seemed to realize it at about the same time. He let one hand fall down from her thigh to press a thumb against her clit, pressing and circling. All of Hermione's muscles tensed and she shot up on the table, bringing her body flush against George's. He wrapped her legs around his waist and sat down in one of the kitchen chairs, still inside of her. She began to ride him earnestly, feeling the rope begin to wind again. He let his hips snap up quickly, and they were both flushed and sweating from the exertion.

He flipped his long fiery hair out of his face, the sweat sticking the damp strands together and making the ends curl up slightly. Hermione twined one hand into the damp mess and used the leverage to pull his face closer to hers and into a kiss that was soon broken by their moans and gasps for breath.

"Fuck… your cunt is so fucking tight…" George moaned against her throat. She felt a wave of arousal and George knew he would do whatever it took to make her cum again. "If I could, I would stay bullocks deep in you all day. I'd stay right here and feel your warm tightness around me. I bet you wish Fred were here too, don't you? Feel his cock in your ass… your mouth… my ass… You'd love the thought of having to share or be shared, wouldn't you? Two long… thick… cocks here, just for you?"

Hermione moaned loudly at his panted words and felt herself getting closer to the point of no return. George brought a hand up to her breasts and pinched hard, and she exploded around him causing his release. They moaned together, before collapsing into the chair.

"Hermione, love, I don't think I'm going to do anything but sit right here today."

In Scotland, Fred Weasley was lying on a bed in an inn, the sound of a fight in the room to his left and the sound of sex in the room to his right. The fighting couple was screaming about whether or not the male had been with another woman the previous night. As hard as Fred tried not to listen, it was not amusing that he couldn't help it.

"You came back smelling like Chanel No. 5 and you have Russian Red on your neck! I wear Chanel No. 19 and my complexion is such that I wear nude lipsticks! I can't believe you thought you could get away with this! And on our 5th anniversary?"

"No, no, no, honey, that's not what happened! I was out with the guys and we decided to go to a Gentlemen's Club and one of the mates, I think it was Mark, paid her to give me a lap dance, and when I didn't react she tried to kiss my neck and get closer. I swear! But I told her, I have a wife and she's the most beautiful one I've got."

"Most beautiful one? And pray tell, David, how many others are there, eh? And what kind of stripper wears Chanel?"

"The good kind?"

Fred sat up and dragged a hand down over his face to wipe the rest of the sleep off of it, and haphazardly raked his hair back out of his eyes. He needed something to do until the conference at two.

He stood and walked into the small bathroom, taking a piss and brushing his teeth before combing out his hair. He walked back into the other room and put on a pair of black trousers and a long sleeved shirt before shrugging on his black pea coat and wrapping a scarf around his neck. Winter in Scotland was not something to mess around with, as he remembered from his years at Hogwarts. Considering it was only November, it was outrageously cold, and he planned on stopping to get a hot chocolate.

He walked out of the room after checking that his wand was on him, and headed outside. He bought a hot chocolate from a vender not far from the inn and walked down the street. He wasn't far from Hogsmeade, where he would be meeting the current owner of Zonko's, but instead had chosen to stay in Muggle Dufftown for practice dealing with Muggles. He and George had discussed creating a line of products that could be marketed towards Muggles and he wanted practice functioning in their society and Dufftown was small enough that he would be able to not deal with too much at once.

Hot chocolate in hand, Fred walked down the streets, his long legs taking large but slow in pace strides. He may not have enjoyed the cold much, but he did like the sight of snow on the ground. He caught his reflection in a store window and for a brief moment thought it was George walking beside him. He turned to ask George if he wanted to go have a snowball fight before remembering that his brother was back in London with Hermione.

Looking past his reflection, he realized that he was standing in front of a jeweler's store. He entered, and walked over to the glass display case. He was unsure of what exactly he was looking for, but Christmas wasn't far away and he figured that this would be the year that he actually got his shopping done before Christmas Eve. A short woman with curly chestnut hair walked out from the back at the sound of the door and she smiled at him.

"Hello, sir. Can I help you with something?"

Fred didn't say anything for a moment, looking at the woman who looked so remarkably like Hermione. There were differences, and they were obvious, but the similarities were there. It would be like looking at Carey Mulligan and Michelle Williams.

The woman was a little caught off guard by his gaze and cleared her throat. He started and smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry. You just look a lot like someone."

"Oh," the girl said. "Is that who you're shopping for today?"

Fred shrugged. "Yes and no. Do you have… bracelets? Well, of course you do. But do you have bracelets that have a male and a female counterpart?"

The woman looked at him for a moment before saying, "Couple's jewelry, you mean? Matching bracelets for a male and female?"

Fred nodded and she led him over to a display case. "These are what we have. Gold is classic, of course. It's beautiful, and we have rose, yellow and white gold. We carry 9k, 14k, and 18k."

She pulled the tray of gold bracelets out of the case and set them on top of the counter. "White gold usually tends to be a little bit more expensive. If you select a gold bracelet set, you need to keep in mind the everyday performance, color differences, and price differences between the carat options.

"And here," she pulled out a second tray, "we have titanium. It is the hardest natural metal. It is three times as strong as steel, but it very lightweight. It is completely hypo-allergenic and does not bend, dent or scratch like gold, silver and platinum are wont to do. Titanium makes for good bracelets because it is affordable, light, and durable. It has appeal because its color often matches that of a watch."

Fred lightly ran a fingertip over the chaining on one of the bracelets. They were all beautiful, and cost wasn't really a problem, but he was curious as to what else she had. He didn't want to make a decision without knowing what else there could be.

"These, are platinum. We don't have as many of these due to their price. Unlike gold it is usually about 95% pure. However, it is very dense and heavy, and might take some getting used to. It is also quite expensive. Anything in this case would be about twice as much as its quality counterpoint in the gold case."

If there was one thing Fred did know about George and Hermione, it was that they would not want to be bothered with very heavy jewelry. He wanted something that would not be a nuisance to them, and more or less ignored the platinum case.

The woman pulled out one last case, and set it beside the others. "This is our selection for silver. All of our sterling is less expensive than gold, platinum and titanium, and can fit nicely into almost any price range. It is quite a bit softer than the other metals though, and could get scratched. It is best that a silver bracelet not be worn for extended periods of time everyday. It can also oxidize and turn black, but it can be made to look new at a jeweler's or with jewelry cleaner."

Fred looked over the bracelets again, before his eyes went back to two he had been looking at earlier. They were titanium ID bracelets. Neither was gaudy or flashy, but they were both sophisticated. He pointed at the two. "Could you get those two out?"

The woman nodded, and pulled the bracelets out. Fred removed his coat and laid it on the counter next to him before taking the male bracelet and fastening it onto his wrist. It was the right size to move around slightly when he did, without being at risk of falling off or pinching his skin.

The woman looked at him before asking. "Is the bracelet for you and your…" she quickly glanced at his ring finger. "Girlfriend?"

Fred shook his head before unfastening the bracelet and laying it flat on the counter. "No, not for me. My brother. May I see your wrist?"

The saleswoman's wrist looked to be about the same size as Hermione's, and when she offered it to him, he softly closed his hand around it. "Could you put on the other bracelet? Your wrist is about the same size as the intended recipient's."

She nodded, relieved. After putting the bracelet on, Fred looked at her with a smile. Great. Does that fit okay?"

The girl nodded, and took it off. Fred fingered the two bracelets before looking at her. "I can get these engraved, can't I?"

She nodded and took out two bags and a few sheets of paper. "I just need you to help me fill these out. Each one is a standard form in case there is anything wrong with them. Warranty, insurance. Name?"

"Fred Weasley."

"How do you spell 'Weasley'?"

After they had finished most of the form, she looked up. "Do you know what you want to have engraved?"

Fred thought for a moment before nodding. Christmas couldn't come fast enough.

Four days later found George and Hermione lying on the couch in the flat. She was lying on her stomach on top of his chest, her legs bent back at the knee and ankles crossed in the air.

They had a platter of light food: cheeses, grapes, orange sections, and summer sausage. Hermione was feeding George the food, and every time she put her fingers in his mouth, he would softly suck on them before she drew them away.

There was something incredibly sensual about feeding someone with your hands, and George took his turn feeding Hermione. After they had both had their fill of food, she scooted up his chest slightly to lightly kiss him. He smiled into her mouth, and she drew back, resting her head on his chest and wrapping her arms around his neck. He brought his hands down, one resting on her lower back, the other on her upper back. He gently rubbed her back and she sighed into his shirt.

"I miss Fred."

She felt him nod and kiss the top of her head before he spoke. She loved the feeling of the vibrations of someone's voice when her head was on their chest. Fred and George had the most soothing baritone voices and the sound of his reply went through her.

"I do too. He should be back soon. As much as I wish he didn't have to go, it is part of our job. The best we can do is just wait for him to get back. Think about it this way: we had each other this past week, and he didn't have anyone. I think he'll be as excited to see us as you are to see him."

Suddenly there was the telltale crack of apparition in the foyer and Hermione made to climb off of George's chest before he pulled her back down. "Just relax. He'll come."

A few moments later, Fred did walk into the room. Hermione jumped up off the couch and ran to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He lifted her up off the ground for a kiss, and she giggled.

"You're back!"

He chuckled and set her back down on her feet. "It would appear so."

George hadn't moved from his spot on the couch, and Fred crossed the room to lean over his brother. They said a few quiet words to each other before they met in the middle for a kiss.

"I come bearing treats." Fred said, sitting on the couch next to George. Hermione sat on Fred's other side, and he wrapped and arm around her as she burrowed into his side. He pulled two bags out of his robes and handed them to the others. George already knew what was in his, and smiled at Fred, setting it on the table before claiming another kiss.

Hermione gasped from beside them. "Soor plooms! I haven't had these in ages! What'd George get?"

George broke the kiss and smiled. "Lucky tatties. He brings them back every time he goes to Scotland. I love the things."

Fred smiled and wrapped his arms around the two of the. "And I love you two."

**A/N I'm sorry it took so long! As my penance I made it longer than usual. I was on vacation with a friend I haven't seen in a year and my writing time was confined to when she is in the shower. I have a Dramione that I'm about to start. It' s a Veela fic, so if you like Dramione then put me on author alert so you can know when I get that up. **

**I've had some complaints about Mrs. Weasley's behavior, and while I won't give too much away, I will say this: Imagine how you would feel if you were in her position. Does she really feel the way she claims to? Is she just shocked? You'll see.**

**Anyone who reviews gets a snippet of the next chapter! And I really do appreciate each and every review. A few have even made me laugh. Any questions you have, just ask and I'll answer them, but if you don't get an answer then someone else has already asked and I'll just post the answer in with the next chapter.**

**Thank you all for reading and reviewing, it means the world!**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N Let me know if you find any weird words, part of this was typed on an iPhone. **

Hermione stood up and kissed the top of Fred's head. "I'm happy that you're home safe. I missed you. We missed you. I'll go make dinner. You name it and I'll make it."

Fred smiled and put his hands over hers, holding them together. He pulled her hands to his mouth, pressing kisses to the backs of her hands. "Well what do you two feel like?" he asked, shooting a look at his brother.

George shook his head. "This is not about us. Hermione has been cooking what I want for a week. Tell her what you want so she can cook us dinner."

Fred rested his head on their hands and looked into her eyes. "How about… Fettuccini with white clam sauce?"

Hermione smiled and bent down to kiss him lightly. "Sounds delicious. I'll call you two when it's done."

She slipped her hands out from between Fred's and leaned over to kiss George. After she walked into the kitchen, Fred slumped against the couch, letting his head fall back. George sat up and wrapped his arms around Fred's shoulders, pulling him back down to lay on his chest. "Are you okay Freddie?"

Fred nodded against George's chest and inhaled his scent of chai and musk. "I'm just really tired. I missed you guys. I was only gone for a week, but it was miserable."

George pulled him closer and kissed him. "Oh, honey. It's okay. You're back now, and you're okay. We missed you too."

Fred sniffed and shook his head against his chest. "You two got to have each other, though. I was alone. "

George sighed and used two fingers to tilt Fred's face up. "You're wrong. We may have had each other, but we didn't have you. It doesn't matter if Hermione was here with me, we won't be complete unless you're here with us."

Fred slowly exhaled and burrowed deeper into George's chest. George slipped his hands under the back of Fred's shirt and started to rub his back. Fred tucked his face into George's neck and inhaled his spicy scent. "I just missed you so much."

George continued to rub his back and quietly shushed the other man. "It's alright, Freddie. It's okay."

Fred pressed his lips against George's, and they kissed slowly kissed for a while before Fred tried to up the ante by increasing the passion. Whenever he would try to gain entrance to George's mouth, George would shoot him down.

"Why won't you fucking kiss me?"

George sighed and rubbed Fred's back again. "Because, you don't need to do it like this. Just relax, love. Take a couple of deep breaths. You don't need to prove anything. There is a time and place for everything. Tonight, when we're in our bed, with Hermione, you can have what you want. Okay? But for now, I just want to lay here with you and just feel the weight of you lying against me."

Fred forced himself to relax against George and focused on breathing in his scent. They both let their eyes slide shut, and George wrapped his arms around Fred. He continued to rub Fred's back, and eventually Fred's breath evened out as he fell asleep. When he had been asleep for about half an hour, Hermione walked quietly into the room.

"Dinner's ready. Do you want to wake him or should I?"

George lightly shrugged. "Go ahead."

Hermione walked over to the sleeping man and lightly brushed his hair off of his face. She slid a hand down the side of his neck and brushed her lips over his. It didn't take long before his eyes fluttered open and he began to kiss her back. Breaking the kiss, she stood up.

"Dinner is ready. I mean the pasta, as well as some garlic bread. It's sitting on the table. Let's eat before it gets cold."

The two men on the couch stood up, Fred stopping to tightly hug George before going into the dining room. They followed Hermione into the kitchen and sat down at the dining room table. Fred smiled at the smell of his favorite meal, and Hermione smiled back. "I'm glad you're home."

Fred shook his head, still smiling. "Not as glad as I am. It looks delicious, love."

The three ate, occasionally smiling, occasionally talking. It was mostly silent though, but it was a comfortable silence. Hermione took a particularly large bite of pasta, ending up with white clam sauce on the corner of her mouth. George noticed the sauce before anyone else did, and he let out a low moan.

"What?" Fred and Hermione asked at almost the same time.

George cleared his throat and shifted in his chair. "You've got a little…" he said, gesturing at the corner of her mouth. She ran a hand across her mouth, swiping off the sauce.

Fred chuckled lightly, grinning at the two. "I can think of something else that I'd like to see in the corner of your mouth."

George and Hermione chuckled back, and continued eating. It didn't take them long to finish, and Fred leaned back in his chair. "I think I'm ready for bed."

George laughed and stood. "You just can't take it, can you?"

Hermione stood as well and lightly slapped George's chest. "While he was gone he didn't have a willing partner. Think about how poor Fred must feel," she slid a hand down George's chest to lightly stroke him through his pants. "He didn't get to feel your cock for a whole week."

Fred pouted from the table and nodded. "All I had was my hand. And while it may feel the same as yours, it just wasn't."

Fred stood and walked over to George who swallowed roughly. Fred kissed and nipped at George's neck. "You know what I want? I want you to fuck me tonight. I want to feel your long thick cock deep inside of me."

George moaned at the thought. Since the two had started an intimate relationship, Fred was usually the one who topped him. Not saying another word, the three of them walked quickly to the bedroom, shedding their clothes as they went.

George sat down on the bed, his hard cock bobbing almost comically, as he leaned over to pull the jar of lubricant from their bedside table. Swiping his finger through the jar, he pulled Fred to stand with his back facing him and slid a finger into his hot depths. Fred grabbed Hermione, kissing her passionately as George continued his ministrations, adding another finger when he could.

Before long, Fred had four long fingers inside of him and a fee of his own inside of Hermione. George carefully withdrew his hand, causing Fred to whimper at the loss. Grabbing another handful of the lubricant, he slicked himself before scooting back on the bed, pulling Fred down and slowly sliding through the resistance. They both let out a moan, and George worked himself in and out.

Hermione was still standing by the side of the bed, one hand between her thighs and the other on her breast. "C'mere, baby."

She crossed the floor and got up on to the bed. George still inside of Fred, leaning back and pulling him down too, so that Fred's back was flush with George's chest. George reached around and grabbed Fred's cock, holding it up for Hermione to get onto. Hermione began to ride him, and George resumed his thrusting inside of him.

Fred felt like he was going to explode. He had never felt so consumed before. He had George's thick arousal filling him up in the back, and the hot wet sleeve of Hermione wrapped tightly around him in the front.

He let his hands slide up her thighs to grip her hips, helping her bounce on his cock. George's hands were roaming the taut muscle of Fred's stomach as he pumped in and out of him. The time for loving would be later; this was a frenzied reminder of what it felt like to all be together.

Hermione came first, her inner muscles clamping tightly around Fred who cried out and screwed his eyes shut in an attempt not to cum with her. Hermione climbed off of Fred, and George rolled them, using his body to pin Fred to the mattress. He pistoned in and out, and Fred turned his face to the side so he could breathe. "Oh... Fuck. Yes, love, yes! George... Right there, oh yeah, right there."

George got up onto his knees and let his left hand trail up to tangle in Fred's hair and his right hand squeezed his hip. George's pelvis slammed against Fred's, his balls slapping against his ass. George moaned at the feeling of Fred clenching around him, and came with a cry in the other man's ass.

Pulling out, he rolled over onto his back, pulling Fred to straddle his face. Taking Fred's cock, sticky with Hermione's lust into his mouth, he let one of his hands trail up to squeeze Fred's nipples. Hermione grabbed Fred's face and kissed him, her tongue invading his mouth and fighting his for dominance.

George's head bobbed quickly over Fred's cock as he sought out the taste of him and Hermione. As wound up as Fred had been, it didn't take him long to cum with a cry into George's mouth. George continued to suck until Fred had completely emptied himself, before he leaned over to kiss Hermione. She swept her tongue inside of his mouth, searching for any remaining trace of his brother's release.

George and Hermione separated, coming to lie on either side of Fred. The three of them tangled their arms and legs together and one by one fell asleep.

.:.

The next day when they woke up, Fred suggested that they go out to get some breakfast. The other two readily agreed and they all showered and dressed, mostly without interruption, although George did have to break up a heated moment between Fred and Hermione.

The three of them were sitting at a small round table at a café not far from WWW less than an hour later, with Fred and Hermione holding hands, and George with a hand on each of their thighs. "What do you think you're going to have, love?" asked George, running his hand up and down Hermione's leg near her knee.

"Well I'm hungry, two red headed gits completely wore me out last night. There's this option here, with two pancakes, two eggs, two sausages, and hashbrowns."

Each of the brothers raised an eyebrow at her, and Fred shook his head. "What the lady wants, she shall have. Oh, our waitress is coming back. Fabulous. I could stand for a bit of food."

After placing their orders, Fred got up to use the restroom, and Hermione scooted her chair closer to George, resting her head on his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and rubbed her back. "You okay, love?"

She nodded and shrugged. "I'm just tired, I guess. I'm really glad that Fred is back."

George nodded and pressed a kiss on her lips, and she sat up and scooted back over as the waitress came back with their food. Fred came back to the table, and sat down, grabbing the carafe of syrup and pouring it over his French toast.

They ate in relative silence, before Fred looked down at Hermione. "How's your mess?"

"Good," she nodded. "Want to try the sausage? It's very good."

He nodded, and she speared a whole link on her fork. Fred let about half of it slide into his mouth while giving George a meaningful look before pulling his head back to take a smaller bite. George let out a low groan and turned his focus to the food in front of him. Fred cut a bite of French toast and stabbed it with his fork, holding it up to Hermione's mouth. As she went to eat it, a little bit of syrup dripped off, landing on her chin. She didn't notice it as she chewed and when she was finished with the bite, he swooped in to lick it off before lightly kissing her.

When they were finished with their lunch, they spent the rest of the day walking around Diagon Alley, acting very much like a group of kids in love.

.".

The next morning when Hermione woke up, there was a loud tapping at her window. The boys were already in down in the shop, so she knew the owls had to be for her. Seeing that nearly all of them were howlers, she flicked her wand at them and they vanished. She grabbed the Daily Profit and let out a gasp at the article on the front page.

**Weasleys Weaseled?**

She quickly skimmed through the article which highlighted the so called illicit affair that she was having with the boys. The implications of the piece were that of the usual Skeeter variety. She was up to no good, using the boys for her own nefarious purposes, the usual.

But seeing the paper put one thought into her head. There was one thing that couldn't be put off anymore. Jotting a note down for the boys in case they came looking for her, she Apparated to Ginny and Harry's house. Harry was flying around the large homestead on his broom, and at the appearance of his friend in the yard he swooped down.

"Hermione?"

She nodded, and he wrapped his arms around her shoulders. "I read the article. Is it true?"

She shook her head. "No… yes… oh sod it. I need to talk to you and Ginny together. I'd rather do this once."

He nodded and walked with her to the house, his arms still around her shoulder. "Gin? We've got a visitor!" he called into the house.

Ginny came down the stairs, pausing slightly when she saw Hermione. "Is it… true?"

"What part?" asked Hermione wryly, following the Potters into the sitting room.

"Are you and my brothers…"

"Yes," Hermione interrupted. "We are."

Ginny nodded. "I knew they liked you, but I never knew they would ever do anything about it. About damn time, too. I read the article this morning. That Skeeter woman never does learn, does she? I figured that if you had any dastardly plot you wouldn't have waited this long to enact it, so I figure you really do care for them."

Hermione nodded, swiping at the tears of relief that began to fall. She sat back heavily, letting her head lull back. "If every time we go out it's going to be like this, I don't know how much of this I can take. I love them, I really do. But this is just…"

The taller redhead put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It's up to you to decide what you want to do. I really don't know what else I could say. Would you be happier without the relationship? Maybe. But think about the love you wouldn't have otherwise."

Hermione sat up and snatched the newspaper off of the coffee table. "But it's hard to think about the love I get when I have to see things like this! '_Hermione Granger, famous paramour of Ron Weasley and Harry Potter, has set her sights on two of the richest storeowners in London. At first, it was apparent that she was attempting to play the Weasley twins, Fred and George, off of each other, but now it has become obvious that she has been using their feelings for her to lower their own senses of moral propriety to convince them to enter into a polyamorous relationship. When questioned, the boys' mother, Molly Weasley, had this to say: 'My boys were raised correctly. They know the difference between right and wrong. I only hope that they see the light of reason soon enough.' The question remains, what exactly has Ms. Granger done to undo 24 years of good morals?'_"

Ginny frowned and looked at Hermione. "Did you read the whole article?"

Hermione shook her head. "Not unless there was more than what was on the first two pages."

Ginny's frown got deeper. "Turn to page 8."

Hermione did as told and gasped at what she saw.

_The three were spotted out to eat earlier this week, and the young girl was eating more than her fair share of food. When one of the brothers got up to use the restroom, she cosied up to the brother sitting behind, separating when the other got back. Is it possible that Ms. Granger has gotten herself pregnant with a Weasley, and, not knowing who the father is, is keeping them both trapped with her?_

Hermione let out a sob and Ginny wrapped her arms around her. "My mom may be a raving bitch about this, but I don't think my dad cares as much. I know Bill and Charlie probably couldn't care less, as long as the twins are happy. Percy will be Percy, but four out of seven isn't bad, Hermione. I don't care what you do with my brothers as long as you don't hurt them. Except for Ron. Feel free to hurt him."

Harry had been mostly silent the whole time, but he placed a hand on her shoulder. "You've been my friend for 12 years. I love you like a sister, and as long as you're happy, I couldn't care less."

"But Ron-"

"Sod Ron," Harry said. "I never thought the two of you were all that well matched in the first place, and I'd rather see you happy with a mountain troll than unhappy with Ron. I hardly talk to him anymore anyway. Your friendship is too important to be wasted away on something like this, and if he can't see that, then his loss."

Hermione broke down in tears, Harry wrapping his arms around her. The floo suddenly activated and Fred and George strode in, wands out. "Hermione? Why is she crying?"

Fred's hand twitched around his wand. "I swear to Merlin, Ginevra, if you hurt her…"

Ginny snorted and stood up to hug her brothers. "Well hello to you two too. Congratulations on the relationship. You could do a lot worse than a brilliant war hero."

"How dare you- wait, what?" asked George.

Ginny chuckled, pulling Hermione off the couch. "Off with you. You have our support, but right now I think you have a couple of overprotective babies to deal with."

Fred grabbed her arm and apparated back to the flat, George appearing next to them almost simultaneously.

"We were worried sick Hermione! You need to tell us when you're leaving. We've been all over London trying to find you!"

Hermione frowned and looked at her feet. "I left you a note…"

Fred piped up from beside her. "Oh, great. A note. Because you couldn't just come downstairs to say goodbye. What if Ginny hadn't been so understanding, hm? What if she had been just like mum, or worse? And we had no clue where you were, how would we find you if something happened? A note. That was bloody stupid, Hermione. For someone so smart that was just… ridiculous."

George shook his head. "Where is this fabled note? We searched the whole flat for some sign of where you were, and it was only when we saw a picture of you and Harry that we figured you might have gone round there."

"I'm sorry, okay?" yelled Hermione. "But I knew you two wouldn't have let me go alone, and it's just something I needed to do, without you there. Can't you understand that?"

"Of course we can! But this would have been so much easier if you had just come down to tell us where you were. We were worried Hermione. Love, we came upstairs to find you, only to find all three beds empty and the Daily Profit open to the most ridiculous article yet."

George muttered something quietly next to her and she leaned over. "What?"

"I thought," he said louder. "That you had left. For good. Your little extendable purse was gone, and so were you, and I thought you had decided you'd had enough and left Fred and I."

She wrapped an arm around each of them, pulling them into her. "I would never just leave without putting up a fight for you."

The three of them stood there for what could have been hours, before there was a noise on the stairs. "Uh, sirs? We have a ton of people down here, and there's only one of me. I can't handle them by myself."

The three separated, the men each kissing Hermione before heading downstairs. "I love you," she said quietly.

"I love you too." The brothers said at the same time, following Verity to the shop.

**A/N I think it's kind of a weird place to end it but I'm tired and can't think of anywhere else to take it in this chapter. Review for another teaser!**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N the lack of response for that last chapter was just pitiful. But thank you those who did review. **

George finished checking out the long line of people waiting at the register. Fred was walking through the aisles manually reshelving items in the wrong places, and although he could be using his magic instead he chose to do it to have something to occupy his hands.

George walked up next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Why do you seem like you don't care at all about the fact the she didn't tell us?"

Fred shook his head and set a few Skiving Snackboxes on the shelves in their proper place. "Because I don't. She expected a freakout about it and she got one. I'm just happy that she's got Harry and Ginny in her corner after what happened with everyone else."

George ran a hand through his hair, the fiery red strands falling to the sides of his face. "I just… I just wish there was some way that she could have trusted us!"

Fred shook his head and walked to the door, tapping the locks with his wand. "She does trust us. But she's also known us for years, _and_ she knows that we're Weasleys. We overreact at almost everything. She knew that. So even though I probably should care, I think I understand what happened. I'm over it."

Fred shrugged and checked the locks, taking off his magenta robes and hanging them on the hook next to the door. "I love Hermione. She's a very smart woman, and I know that she had to have a reason for making the choices she made today. _That_ is why I don't care."

Fred and George headed back up to the flat, George going into his room with a frown and Fred went to the kitchen to get some water. He walked to the bathroom, opening the door. He stood leaning into the doorway with him arms crossed. He stood there and watched Hermione. She was lying under the water, facing away from him.

Hermione lay in the bath, completely submerged in the water. Instead of using a bubble head charm, she laid on the bottom of the tub looking up through water at the ceiling. She ran her hands through the water, the water rippling across her face. The water blurred her vision, and the feelings inside of her mirrored the distortion.

She felt like she would throw up, knowing that the boys were mad at her. She blinked, feeling the water move across her eyes. Running out of air, she rose up until just her lips cleared the water. She took a deep breath, her lungs filling with air. She sunk back to the bottom, fighting to keep herself submerged in the deep tub. A shadow fell across her vision and she looked up to see Fred sitting on the side of the tub. He grabbed a flannel and beckoned for her to sit up. She sat up in the water, running her hands over her hair to smooth it back and out of her eyes.

He lathered the cloth and wordlessly began to wash her back. Hermione was the first to break the silence. "Is George still mad at me?"

Fred shrugged and scrubbed at her back. "Yes and no. He's mostly mad about the fact that you didn't feel like you could just come tell us where you were going. You've made many an enemy in the course of your life, and there are people who dislike us as much as they dislike you. The Dark Lord may have fallen, but there are many groups of Purebloods who still think of us as blood traitors. There are also a vast number of people who wouldn't be as understanding of us as Ginny was."

Fred relathered the flannel, dragging it down her arm. "Right now he's in his room nursing a wounded pride that's about it. He'll come round, trust me on that. But you could have been anywhere with God knows who and no way of protecting yourself. You are a strong witch, but against multiple assailants, you would not be able to save yourself. We love you too much to let you get hurt. Especially over an article in the Profit."

He dipped the flannel in the water rung it out over her, rinsing the suds off of her skin.  
>She shivered and he kissed her. "This water is freezing. C'mon, let's go to bed. It's getting kind of late and you look tired."<p>

He unfolded a towel and held it out to her. Hermione went to step out of the tub and he swept her into his arms, wrapping her in the towel. Briskly rubbing her dry, he carried her into the nearest bedroom, his, and let her down next to the bed. He pulled the blankets back and stepped back from the bed, crossing his arms to grab the hem of his shirt and pull it over his head. He fingered the button of his jeans and slid them down his narrow hips.

She stared at him, her eyes glazed over slightly. He quirked an eyebrow and cleared his throat. "Looking's free, but touching is gonna cost you."

He pushed her onto the bed and kneeled on the bed, straddling her thighs. He kissed her, his tongue invading her mouth. He broke the kiss and kissed his way down her body before stopping near her belly button. "But I'm sure we could work out some sort of payment program."

He rested his head on her mons and turned his head to the side, inhaling deeply. "Bloody delicious."

He licked his lips and slid his face between her thighs. He tongued her clit, sucking and nipping at the hard button. He moved down a little lower, sliding his tongue into her. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that Fred liked more about sex than giving oral sex. He had never been all too picky about who he gave it to, and out of George and himself, he actually considered himself to be bisexual. The taste of anyone's arousal in his mouth had the ability to turn him on more than almost anything else.

He slid his tongue in and out of her, streaks of creamy arousal smeared on his face, the inside of her thighs, and her slit. She groaned pushing her head back into the pillows as her back arched. He grabbed her clit between his teeth and nipped at it, looking up at Hermione.

Fred's cock was pressed hard into the mattress below him. As he continued to eat her out, he ground his hips into the bed. "I'm so hard love."

Hermione pulled him up, wrapping her arms around his back. "As good as that felt, I need your cock. Please, Fred, I need it. I'm so close, baby, get me there."

Fred suddenly realized that he had never just been with Hermione without George around, and although he loved George, the two of them had had a week of quality time and he hadn't spent any real time alone with her.

He wrapped one of his long hands around his cock and guiding himself into her. She let out a load moan at the feeling of his thickness in her. He pressed his lips to hers, slamming his hips against hers. His headboard slammed against the wall as he worked his way in and out of her.

In the room next door, George was laying in bed with a pillow hugged to his chest. His bed would rock every now and then from the force of the other bed hitting the wall. He wasn't mad at Hermione anymore. Not really. And he wasn't sure why it bothered him to listen to the two of them together. They usually wouldn't just be only one person out of the three, though.

Normally George would've been getting hard from the sounds coming from the room next to his, if not feeling a little bit left out. But neither of them had talked to her in the couple of hours since the shop had closed. He could understand that what Fred was saying about how Hermione felt, and he was starting to understand where they were both coming from.

George lay on his back listening for the noises to stop. When they did, he counted to 60. Seven times. He stood from the bed, running one of his long thin hands through his hair and crossed the floor to the door. He pulled it open, walking to Fred's room. He had his hand on the door about to pull it open when he heard the voices through the door.

"-And you know that I love you more than anyone else on earth, right Fred? You are what I wake up for in the mornings. No one else."

George's hand slid from the doorknob, and he stood there for a couple of seconds. He could hear voices coming from inside the door, but the only thing he could hear at that point was a faint buzzing noise in his ears.

He turned slowly on his heel, walking back to his bedroom. He threw a few things into a bag, and strode into the living room to the floo.

"The Burrow."

.:.

The next morning, Hermione woke up to an empty bed. After checking the flat for the boys, she went downstairs and found Fred. "I'm going out to go look at books. I'll see you soon, okay?"

He kissed her forehead and handed her a few galleons from his robes. "Think you can buy me a couple of magazines?"

She nodded and pocketed the galleons. He hugged her and she strode out of the front doors, immediately heading for Flourish and Blotts. She decided that to get there, she'd cut through the alley between Eeylops and Ollivander's. She knew it was probably a bad idea, but since the fall of Voldemort, there weren't too many real threats left.

Two arms suddenly wrapped themselves around her, while two others clasped over her mouth. She heard a low voice in her ear.

"Don't you say a fucking word… Granger."

The two people pulled her into a little side alley.

She spun around and gasped. Twin smirks spread across the remarkably similar faces.

"Hello… mudblood."

"Cr- Vincent… G-Greg…ory. How are you?"

"How are we?" Crabbe asked, twirling his wand between two meaty hands, "Well, let me put it this way. Since you killed our leader, we've been forced to either polyjuice ourselves or cast a glamour anytime we want to go out. Do you have any idea how difficult that makes living?"

Goyle tapped a finger against his chin in a surprisingly educated gesture. "Well… what should we do with this little waste of air?"

Someone cleared their throat behind them. Goyle and Crabbe whirled around surprisingly fast, wands pointed at the person behind them. The tall man standing behind them cut an impressive figure. Instead of the robes that the average wizarding robes, he was wearing all black, a sweater, coat, and trousers.

"Give her to me," the man said with a sneer. "Leave the filthy little chit to me."

Crabbe and Goyle shook their heads. "I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Malfoy."

Draco smiled, and nodded slightly. "I understand. I'll leave you to it, then."

He spun on his heel and started to stride away. Hermione made to call out to him to help her, but Goyle shot a quick_ Silencio_ at her. Draco made a move to crouch and brush off the dirt that had gotten on his shoe. "Filthy Mudbloods. I can't even get anywhere near you without dirtying myself."

He stood, pointing a wand at the now relaxed Crabbe and Goyle. He sent hex after hex at the two, and they sent them right back.

Hermione pressed her back into the wall behind her. He shot spell after spell at the other two men. The two screamed loudly, obviously in pain, but he showed them no mercy, continuing the deluge of magic. They collapsed to the ground in a heap, and he brushed his hands together before slowly turning on his heels to face her.

"Well, you certainly do have a knack for getting into trouble, don't you?" he asked, taking three quick steps to her before pointing his wand at her. "_Finite Incantatum."_

She swallowed a couple of times, and he noticed her discomfort. He pointed his wand at a butterfly. _"Fera Verto. Aguamenti."_

He handed her the goblet of water and she took a drink, giving him a grateful smile. "Malfoy…"

Draco shook his head and pulled case of cigarettes from one pocket. He snapped his fingers, a flame sprouting from his hand. He lit the cigarette, took a deep drag, and blew the smoke away from her face.

"I want us to start over. Since the fall of… Voldemort… and my father's death, I realized how truly fucked up the things I was listening were. I just want to apologize for… everything that I ever said to you. Now, I believe that there are a couple of Weasleys you should be checking in with. Rumor has it that they would have a certain personal interest in your well being."

He offered an arm to her, and she shook her head. He lightly shrugged. They walked to the front door of WWW, and he dropped the cigarette on the ground, putting it out with his heel before waving his hand at it. "_Evanesco."_He murmured. He opened the door, only going in after she had.

She had to admit, he was a prick, but his manners were impeccable.

"Weasleys?"

Fred poked his head around a shelf. "Malfoy? Hermione? Wait, what?"

Malfoy shrugged. "I just stopped my ex cronies from killing your girlfriend. I thought you might want to get her back."

Fred came all the way around the corner, stowing his wand away into his sleeve. "You're okay, Hermione?"

She nodded, and sent a hesitant smile to Malfoy. "Yeah, actually. I know I probably wouldn't be if not for Malfoy."

Fred took a couple of steps toward the blond man, holding out one pale hand. "Thank you, Malfoy."

Draco Malfoy sent a slight look at the Weasley's hand, before grasping it in a firm handshake. "You are welcome. I want to put all of the bullshit from before in the past. I want to fix my old wrongs."

Fred nodded. "That sounds… reasonable. There is a chance that we won't be best friends… or good friends… or even friends at all, really. But thank you."

They nodded at each other again before Malfoy turned to walk out the door. Fred turned to Hermione and grasped her arms, kissing her. "You're really alright?" he asked against her lips.

She nodded and wrapped an arm around his waist. "Really and truly. Where's George? He won't believe this."

Fred raised an eyebrow. "You mean he wasn't upstairs when you left?"

She shook her head and he let his arms drop from her shoulders. "Dear lord, he's done it again."

"Done what?" asked Hermione.

Fred shook his head. "Every time he gets overwhelmed about something, he runs away. Looks like we're going to the Burrow for dinner."

**A/N This story is very very very FERMORGE. Just saying. I've been asked question, so I think I'll get on that. **

**When do I update? I have a 'schedule' of sorts. After I post, I spend a day or two reading stories, then I write. Depending on my mood, I can either crank out 10 pages in two hours, or it'll take me over a week to write six pages. **


	9. Chapter 9

Hermione hated the idea of going to the Burrow. After everything Molly had said about her last time, the thought of going over there, even to find George, did not sit well with her.

In the room next door, Fred was thinking about things that were very similar. _He_ didn't want Hermione there either. But due to George's emotional outbursts, they didn't have much of a choice.

George had always been a very emotional man. It never really took much to get a passionate reaction out of him. When they were younger, Fred was usually the only person who could talk sense into him when he would get upset about something. Unless it was Fred himself that George was mad at. If George was mad at Fred, which was rare, the two would go months without talking.

Hermione was sitting on her bed in her underwear, head in hands. Fred knocked on the door and poked his head through. At the sight of her he sighed, and walked through the door. "You look confused, love. What's got you so confused?"

Hermione shook her head and stood. "I have no clue _what_ to wear. It's dinner with a family who mostly hates me. Should I wear a dress?"

Fred smiled at her and crossed to her closet, pulling out a pair of jeans and a sweater.

"Here. You need to relax a little bit. It'll be okay. I've already owled Bill, Fleur, Ginny and Harry. Harry and Ginny were going to come, but something came up and one of the kids got sick. Bill and Fleur are rather laid back about things, and I'm sure that if I could contact Charlie quickly enough, he'd be okay with it as well. I love you. George, bless his emotional little soul, loves you too. And if something happens to you again at my house, then we will leave, preferably with George. Okay?"

Hermione nodded and slipped on the clothes that George had handed her. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pressing his lips against her temple. "Are you ready?"

She frowned and considered telling him no, but nodded instead. He wrapped his arms around her and apparated onto the Weasley's property.

Fred opened the door and walked inside, Hermione behind him. "Fred!" cried Mrs. Weasley at the sight of her son. He pulled Hermione from behind him and at the sight of her Fleur and Bill walked over.

"Hello, mum," Fred said, his mother glaring at the young woman. Fleur pulled Hermione into a hug, which Hermione had completely expected. The young Frenchwoman used nearly every excuse to hug people. When Fleur pulled away, Bill surprised her by hugging her.

"How are you?" he asked, using that tone easily recognizable as that of a worried older brother. "George won't tell us what happened, but he's acting like a chit."

Hermione wrapped her arms around the tall man, who lightly patted her back. Behind them, Fred pulled his mother into the kitchen to help her with dinner and keep her away from Hermione.

"I don't really know what happened either. I came home from trying to shop, and he was gone. Fred though that he'd come here for some reason, so we came to hunt him down."

Bill nodded and frowned, the skin around his scars puckering. "I can't think of anything he's said that could be helpful to you, but he hasn't said much."

The kitchen door opened, and Mrs. Weasley stuck her head through. "Dinner's ready," she all but snarled.

Walking into the kitchen, everyone sat down at the table. Mrs. Weasley tapped her wand against a bell, and George came down the stairs, frowning slightly at the sight of Fred and Hermione. People stood around the table, trying to find out who would sit where. Hermione and Fleur seemed to notice to the same thing at the same time.

"Euh, zere ahre not enough chairz for ahll of ze people here, Molly."

Mrs. Weasley sent a small smile at the beautiful blonde. "But every member of the family has a chair?" she asked, feigning innocence.

Fred opened his mouth to start yelling at his mother, but before he could, George waved his wand, a chair appearing at the other side of the table, near Fred but farthest away from himself. Hermione sent him a grateful smile but he refused to meet her eyes. She frowned down at her hands, gently sitting in the chair he had gotten for her.

Everyone around the table sought out a place to sit with the exception of Molly, who went to the kitchen to get the rest of the food. She artfully set them down on the table, somehow managing to place them all out of reach of Hermione.

"Err, Molly? May I have some of the chicken?"

Molly smirked at her with a condescending look. "Oh, help yourself dear. You don't have to ask!"

Fleur frowned and handed Hermione the plate of chicken. "Eat up, 'Ermione! You are so small… you could stand to 'ave some meat on zose bones!"

Hermione speared a couple pieces of the chicken and passed the plate of meat on, accepting the plate of potatoes that Fleur was now handing her. She spooned a healthy portion when a voice chimed up from the other side of the table. "Eating for four, dear?"

"I'm not pregnant, Molly. Especially not with triplets."

Molly pretended not to hear her and continued on, "I don't know how they do things in the Muggle world, but here bastard children are really looked down upon. They are considered by most to be of a lower status than Muggle Borns, even if the bastard is pureblood. Who's the father, Hermione? Don't worry, you can tell me, your secret is safe… If you even know who he is, then. I'm sure it could be any number of men."

Hermione stood, her chair almost tipping over. She threw her napkin down on the table, her brown eyes blazing. "I don't know what your problem with me is, Mrs. Weasley, but you have gone too far. I have sat through your accusations of Imperioing your sons, of having ulterior motives… But to listen to you claim that I am with child, and not that of your sons? I love them. Fred and George both. I would never do that to them, and if I were pregnant before I got with them, you can be sure that they would both have been made aware of that fact. The only men I have ever been with happen to be Weasleys. Ron, and now Fred and George. I don't know why you keep doing this, but you are going to drive your children away from you."

Molly Weasley stood, the picture of calm except for the fire in her eyes. "_I'm_ going to drive my children away? No, you _took_ them from me, you little harlot. And you're selfish enough that you couldn't just settle down, you had to take my twins and have them both to yourself. And if you love them _both_ so much, then explain why George came here earlier today almost in tears? He won't say what happened, but I'm willing to bet my wand that it had something to do with _you!"_

Fred put his hands on his temples, and let out an exclamation of frustration. "Gah! Mother, George and I were _together_ before Hermione came into the equation, trust me. And I know how Hermione feels about us. And I don't know why George left, but I intend to find out. But I won't have you drive away the best thing to happen to me in years. Are we clear, Mother?"

Everyone in the room glanced at George from the corner of their eyes, and he stood, not making eye contact back with any of them. Without a word, he walked from the room and out of the front door.

"The only thing that is clear," Molly hissed, "Is that you have to be one of the most vain, narcissistic people alive, to claim sexual attraction to your twin. And what's even worse is that you can't just find a witch who thinks you are enough to satisfy her."

Hermione couldn't take it anymore; she turned and walked out of the room as well, except she headed upstairs. She walked into the twins' old room and was surprised to see only one bed. But due to the mess, clutter, and objects strewn about, this was quite obviously _their_ room, and the things in it belonged to two men, not one, despite the bed. She picked up a picture off of the dresser, and was not surprised to see the twins, circa their fifth or sixth year. They each had an arm slung over the other's shoulder, and George had his face pressed against Fred's shoulder, nose scrunched and laughing. Fred was looking down at his brother and laughing as well, lighting bumping his right hip against George's left. The pose in the picture could be mistaken for familial love, but if one really looked at it, it was obvious that the feelings the two had for each other went beyond that, even if they had not acknowledged it at that point in their lives.

_How could everyone have missed it for this long?_

Downstairs, Fred had leapt up angrily and started yelling at his mother. Fleur had grabbed the children and retreated to the living room, and Bill had gone outside in an effort to find George.

He could barely make out his figure standing near the pond at the back of the property. He chose to walk over, and stood a dozen or so feet behind his taller brother. George had to have heard him walk up, as it was dark and Bill made quite a bit of noise walking over things that he couldn't see, but he didn't say a word to his older brother before he quickly took three steps towards the water. Where they were standing was near the deeper end, and it had a severe drop off about 10 feet in. Bill and Charlie used to take gillyweed and try to see who could go down deeper before the effects started to wear off, but they had never made it to the bottom.

"How long do you think I would have to be in the water before they wouldn't be able to bring me back?"

Bill took a worried step towards George who waved him back lazily with one hand, still facing the water. "Calm down, I won't do it."

Bill ran a hand through his long hair and frowning, his scars stopping one side of his face from turning down as much. "What happened? Last I heard from Fred, everything was fine. You had Hermione, you had Fred, you were happy, and you were in love. Then I get here and you're slinking around and saying shit like that. What could be this bad?"

"Bill, imagine if all of the things you never wanted to happened, suddenly did. Your life was nice, calm. Perfect, even. Sure, there were rough spots, but you were happy. Now imagine if everything that you thought you had wasn't real. How would you be doing?"

Bill shook his head lightly. "I'm sorry, George, but you really need to be more specific than that. I want to help you, but I can't do anything to help if you're going to be this vague."

"There's nothing to fix, Bill!" George yelled, spinning around. It had been a few years since Bill had seen his brother this upset. "There's nothing to fix anymore!"

The young wizard let out a noise that sounded like a mix between a whimper and a sob. "I think you need to go. You should just go back to the house."

Bill shook his head. "I don't feel comfortable…"

George rolled his eyes and cut him off. "I vow that I will not do anything out here to purposely harm myself."

There was a stirring of magic in the air as George took the Wizard's Oath. Satisfied, Bill turned to walk up to the house.

Inside, Fred had finished dressing down his mother. That had ended up with her in tears, clutching at his robes. He swatted her off, still furious about the way she had talked about Hermione, and went up the stairs to find her. He thought she would have gone into Ginny's old room, and was surprised to see she wasn't in there. He went into his and George's old room and opened the door, smiling slightly at the memories from the small room.

The two had shared a bed for years, the Weasley's never having enough money to buy a second bed and instead giving them Bill's old bed when it became impossible for them to sleep in their smaller-than-twin sized beds, which would be needed by Ron, and later Ginny. No matter how the boys had gone to sleep, they would always end up tangled together, from leg to head. Their long legs would be tangled together under the sheets, their arms wrapped around each other, and one of their heads resting on the other's shoulder or chest. Fred wasn't sure when it had started for George, but he did know that he had started to feel less than brotherly love towards George sometime around his third year. He had tried to cover it up, and eventually had ended up dating Angelina, but George was never far from his mind.

The way their feelings had come out in the open, was rather sudden and unexpected. Fred was lying in their bed one night when George was supposed to be staying at Lee's house. George had come back to get his deck of Exploding Snap, and was surprised to see Fred laying on the bed, cock in hand. George had stood in the room for a few minutes before he made a move to shift his own growing hardness. The movement made a slight sound, and Fred's eyes had shot open as he came, locking eyes with his brother standing near the door.

Fred was suddenly jerked back to the present when he realized that Hermione was laying on the bed. "Come on, it doesn't look like we're going to be able to talk to George tonight. Bill didn't come back they're been gone for ages. Let's go home, I can come back tomorrow and try to sort this out, eh?"

She let out a sniff and stood. He immediately wrapped his long arms around his and lightly crushed her to his chest. "Come on, love," he murmured, apparating them directly outside, sidestepping Mrs. Weasley.

Fred wrapped an arm around Hermione's shoulders and led her towards the back of the property. Hermione was surprised by the sight the hit her. She hadn't known there was a pond on the property, when she usually visited the Burrow in the summer she didn't leave Ginny's room. It was a beautiful small body of water surrounded by trees and flowers. George was standing by the water, skipping rocks. He slipped a hand into the pocket of his straight leg trousers and drew out another rock, drawing his arm back and sending it across the water. George rolled up his sleeves to the elbow, and straightened his vest, tucking his hair behind his ears, and turning on his heel to go to the house.

Seeing Fred and Hermione, he frowned and stuck his hands in his pockets. "Why are you here?"

Hermione gritted her teeth. "Because my idiot boyfriend ran away."

George dramatically knitted his eyebrows and pursed his lips. "But Fred's right there?"

Fred rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, leaning against a tree. "What are you talking about? Didn't we have this conversation? I love you, Hermione loves you, and you say you love us, too. So what I want to know is why you are acting like a PMSing 13 year old?"

George scoffed and started talking in a high pitched voice, mimicking Hermione. "'And you know that I love you more than anyone else on earth, right Fred? You are what I wake up for in the mornings. No one else.'"

Fred ran a hand through his hair and put a hand on Hermione's shoulder. "I'll be right back, I have to go ask Bill something really quick."

Fred popped away to the house, and George turned to look at the water. "Why would you pretend to actually care about me? Why would you just…" George whirled around to face her. "Just go. I guess you got what you wanted then. I don't know why, but it seems like your only intent was to completely humiliate me, and it seems like you accomplished that. You had my love, you have my brother, and you have my boyfriend. I am completely alone now."

Hermione took a few steps towards him, reaching a hand towards his shoulder, freezing when he flinched. "George, you've got it wrong. I really don't know why you think that Fred and I are conspiring to get together behind your back! I don't know if any of us would be truly happy without the other two. Can you honestly say that you think Fred or I would do that to you?"

Fred came back, a pensieve in hand. He thrust it into George's hands. "Hold this a tic."

He held his wand up to his temple and pulled away a few silvery strands, dropping them into the pensieve in George's hands. "Everybody in. Especially you," Fred said, shooting a look to George.

The three of them entered the memory. George felt a twist of pain in his chest at the sight of Fred and Hermione lying under the sheet. Hermione was starting to doze when Fred propped himself up on his left arm, using his right to play with Hermione's hair. "Hermione?"

She cracked open her eyes and looked over at Fred. "Hmm?" she asked, sounding exhausted. The Fred standing against the wall smirked at Hermione who rolled her eyes. "Can you see yourself with George and I in the future? The Skeeter article did point out a few things, and there are many people who are going to agree with her. I know that George is in this for the long haul, and I am too. But do you know, without a doubt, that you want this?"

Hermione put her hands on the sides of Fred's face, putting their foreheads together. "I wouldn't have been with you two that first time unless I thought that I could do this for real. I don't like to say things I don't mean. And you know that I love you more than anyone else on earth, right Fred? You are what I wake up for in the mornings. No one else has ever made me feel as… safe… or as… cared for as I feel when I'm with you two. Okay? I want this… you. Both of you."

There was a quickly flurry of movement, and they found themselves back on the shore. George let out a sob and collapsed to his knees on the soft dirt. Fred and Hermione crouched down next to him. Fred lightly crushed George to his chest and Hermione ran her hands through her hair.

Hermione murmured words of comfort and lightly rubbed his back. He let out a cry. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

They sat in the dirt for what felt like forever before one of them realized how cold they were. Fred apparated them back to their flat, and George wiped his eyes and went to sit on the couch. He curled up against the arm rest, Hermione coming to sit right beside him, Fred on her other side. She pulled George over so his head rested in her lap and stroked his long fiery hair, lightly massaging his scalp.

He swiped at his eyes, tears clinging to his long eyelashes. His brown eyes appeared brighter than usual, and his face was slightly red, his freckles harder to see.

"God, I feel like such a girl sometimes. I hate how effeminate I am."

"Oh," Hermione said. "The fact that you cried doesn't make you effeminate. It just makes you sensitive to your emotions."

George rolled those beautiful eyes and made a noise in the back of his throat. "I enjoy being shagged by another man."

"But you also enjoy being shagged by a witch.

"Trust me," Fred said. "You may like my cock, but you are all man."

Fred leaned over Hermione's lap to press his mouth against George's. They kissed for a few minutes, before Fred pulled the three of them to stand. They all walked to George's bedroom, settling down on the bed.

"What do you say, Fred," Hermione said, "We show George how happy we are that he came home?"

Fred grinned that devilish Weasley grin, nodding at the young with. "That sounds absolutely wonderful." 

Together they pushed George back onto his back. Hermione crouched over George's body, lightly kissing his neck. He let out a sigh and pulled her mouth up to his. He kissed her for a few moments, his tongue battling hers, before he broke away. "I'm so sorry. I feel like saying that isn't enough… but the thought of not being with you two hurt so much…"

Hermione quieted him with another light kiss. Fred slid up and gently ran his hand through George's long hair. "Sh… love, it was as much our fault as yours. We could have been more forthcoming with you as to how we felt about the three of us. So… to make it up to you… Hermione and I are your willing sexual servants for the rest of the night, how 'bout that?"

George let out a low moan and grabbed Fred's hair, pulling their faces together. It was all tongue, teeth, and spit, neither of them willing to submit although Fred did eventually allow George entrance to his mouth. George broke away panting, and Hermione let out a chuckle at the sight of the two, eyes blazing and chests heaving. "I think he like that idea a lot, Fred."

George pushed Fred back lightly and lay down on his back, crooking a finger at them. "Undress each other. Then me."

They obeyed, giving George a little show as Hermione slipped the sweater from Fred's form, following it with her own. Their pants joined their shirts on the ground, and they slid off their under things before turning to George, whose cock was pressed insistently against his fly. Once all three of them were naked, George stroked himself once, from base to tip. He moved to swipe a thumb through the fluid on the head when Fred grabbed his wrist. "Can I taste you?"

George nodded quickly, his hips twitching as Fred tucked his long fiery hair behind his ears and swallowed him down. From the corner of the bed, Hermione was writhing slightly, kneeling on the bed and grinding herself down over her heel.

"Touch yourself," George hissed. "Both of you. I want a show."

There was a quick flash of wetness as Fred grasped his cock and the head grazed George's calf. Hermione sunk two fingers into herself. All three of them let out a moan, Fred and Hermione at the sensation, George at the visual and physical stimulation.

Fred ran him tongue across the head of George's tool, and made him groan out. He slid his cock from Fred's mouth, the low light in the room making it shine. He reached for his wand and waved it at Fred, murmuring a quick spell. Fred let out a low moan at the cool feeling of the lubricant covering his cock. George whispered a similar spell, this time pointing his wand at himself. His entrance lubed up as well, and he squirmed slightly on the bed.

George bent his knees, and smiled at Fred. "Fuck me, show me how much of a mistake I made when I left."

Fred groaned and wrapped one long hand around the base of his member and slowly slid into George until his hips met his ass. George reached an arm out to Hermione and pulled her close, raised her up, and dropped her down on his still glistening tool. They all let out moans, and Fred fought harder to enter George with the added pressure of Hermione's weight added to his opening. Fred pushed on, his hips slamming into George, who let out a gasp chest heaving, with every thrust. Hermione bounced on him, his hands on her hips helping move her over him.

Hermione cried out, gasping as George pulled her down onto him. Fred pumped in and out of him, his hips slapping against his brother. "Harder…" George gasped out, his skin hot and damp. Fred flipped his damp hair out of his face and obliged, George's mouth falling open in a series of gasps. Hermione let out a cry and came, squeezing tight around George's tool. George's eyes slid shut, trying to hold himself back from spilling into her tight wetness. She gently climbed off of him, and Fred let his hips move faster, wrapping his long fingers around George.

George's hips pumped into Fred's hand. "I'm going to…"

"No!" cried Fred. "Not yet, trust me."

Fred lightly squeezed the base of George's cock, bringing him away from the edge. Fred pulled George's legs up to rest on his shoulders and swiveled his hips, the head of his tool brushing against George's prostate. Fred let go of his cock, and he came from the sensations. When George clamped down on Fred's member, he came with a cry, both of their moans mixing together.

The three of them lay side by side, all panting. "I feel so horrible," George whispered.

Fred slid from the bed and slid from the room, coming back in a few minutes with two packages. He flipped each of them over in his hands, checking them over, before handing them to George and Hermione.

"I bought these for you when I was in Scotland. I had meant for them to be Christmas presents, but I think it is better that I give them to you now. I feel like these speak for themselves. I mean it, too."

They each gently pulled the paper off of the packages, a jewelry box in the hand of each. Hermione was the first to open hers, and gasped. "Oh, Fred!"

George unwrapped his and his eyes shot up to Fred. They each slipped the rings out of their boxes, looking at them in the light. Hermione was the first to notice the engraving on the inside of the band. "'_I love my life because it gave me you'_. Oh, Fred."

Hermione leaned over and pressed her lips to Fred's, while George sat on the bed, continuously reading the engraving on the inside of his own.

_I love you because you are my life_.

Fred slid the rings onto each of their right ring fingers, before kissing each ring once in its place. "The two of you are the best thing that has happened to me. I have about 150 years of my life yet, and I want to spend them with you. I'm not asking you to marry me, not yet anyway. But I just want to make sure you know how much I care about you."

Hermione and George wrapped their arms around him, Hermione letting out sobs into the left side of his neck, while George buried his face in Fred's shoulder, breathing in the scent of his skin. Fred rubbed each of their backs, and quietly shushed Hermione.

"Come on, it's been a long day. Let's just go to bed. If you want, we can all talk in the morning."

George nodded, falling back onto the bed. "I think that would be best. I'm sure there are some things tat you two want to ask me, and I know that there are things I want to say."

Hermione nodded, resting her head on George's chest. George rubbed the top of her arm, pulling her close. Fred curled his body against the right side of George's, his head resting on George's chest near Hermione's. The three of them held hands, and each of them kissed the other two.

"Nox," whispered Hermione, plunging the room into darkness. It didn't take long for all but one of them to fall asleep. George lay there on his back, wanting to go into the other room for a glass of firewhisky, but could not due to the two on his chest. He let out a sigh and settled into the bed, finally falling asleep.

The last thought he had before finally succumbing, was unsurprising.

_Yes, there was much to talk about the next day._

**A/N Thanks for the sheer amount of reviews for the last chapter. Think you can top it? They encourage me to write more. This chapter was 6 pages longer than the last.**

**This is more or less what I imagined George to look like when they found him at the pond. Ignore Angelina. Remove the spaces.** http:/ tinyurl. com/ 3clfhh8


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N I was so proud of you guys for the sheer amount of reviews but you kind of petered off. Sorry about not updating right away, school started and I've been crazy busy with work. Anyone who reviews gets an outtake. From… Fred's trip to Scotland?**

The next day, Hermione woke first. She carefully extricated herself from the bed and went into the kitchen to begin making breakfast. There was talking to be done, and she felt it might be easier if everyone had already eaten. She put on a kettle of water to make tea, and pulled a carton of eggs and some bangers from the fridge. She started to cook, her mind elsewhere.

She wouldn't lie to herself, she was nervous about the conversation that they needed to have. She felt a little bit more reassured about Fred's feelings after the ring he had given her, but the signals coming from George were much harder to read. Fred had no filter of really any sort, and was often saying whatever was on his mind. George, the more emotional of the two, often kept his thoughts to himself. He had no qualms about telling her that he loved her, but he often wouldn't put into words his feelings unless Fred or Hermione told him first.

There were any manner of things that could come from the twins today, and she had no clue what could come from the conversation. Had they decided that their relationship had been better before she entered it? She felt like she was being suffocated in her nervousness, and she leaned back against the counter heavily, taking a deep breath.

George was the first to emerge from the bedroom, eyes half shut. He sat down heavily into one of the kitchen stools and ran a hand over his face and through his face, before rubbing his eyes with a yawn. She slid him a cuppa with milk, and turned to go back to the stove. George had time to drink three cups of tea before Hermione finished cooking, and Fred emerged from the bedroom.

They ate in a relative silence, no one quite wanting to start the conversation they all knew they needed to have. When they finished eating, they all sat there, not moving. Finally, finishing a fourth cup of tea, George stood and gathered the dishes, putting them in the sink and waving his wand, setting the charm on the sink to work. He poured another cup and sat back down at table.

"George," Fred started. "Before we can talk about us, I think I need to tell you about something. Yesterday, Hermione was going to Flourish and Blotts when Crabbe and Goyle, I'm sure you remember those pricks, pulled her into an alley, and blamed her for the fall of the dark lord. God knows what they were going to do to her, but luckily Draco Malfoy found them."

"Luckily?" George blurted out. "What could be lucky about Malfoy finding them?"

"Draco saved my life," Hermione said. "If not for him, I could easily have ended up broken out there on the street, or dead."

George let his head fall into his hands. "I'm sorry love. It's just that we've spent so much of our lives with him saying things to all of us… things that he carefully picked to hurt us. But knowing that he is the one who saved you from what sounds like nearly certain death… I can't say that I'm not thankful to him."

Hermione nodded, and George reached over to lightly squeeze her hand.

Fred ran his fingers through his hair and lightly tugged on the ends, looking at the strands woven between his fingers. "What do you think is wrong with us? Because honestly, I think we skipped the good part of our relationship. You moved in with us, and then a few weeks later we more or less jumped straight headfirst into our relationship. I feel like we never really went through the whole courting phase. Everyday we're learning more about you, Hermione. There is so much I still don't know about you, and it's overwhelming. What's your favorite flower? Would you prefer if we bought you dark or milk chocolate?"

Hermione shook her head and set down the cup of tea she had held in both hands. "Those things don't matter. But poppies and milk chocolate, incidentally. George, what do you think?"

George finished yet another cup of tea and pushed it away from him. "I have to say that I agree with Fred. We just jumped headfirst into this, and we really don't know each other. Even though Fred and I were… together… for a brief while before we met you, I still know about him more in a brotherly sense than anything else. I feel almost like we need to start our relationship over, trying to forget the things that have happened in these past couple of days."

Hermione nodded again, playing with her fingers. "I think that I should move out. Temporarily, at least. You've been paying me way more than my job is worth, so I can afford to get a place for a while. Maybe we could set up a sort of timeframe, you know? Like… we'll spend X amount of time thinking about if we are positive we want to proceed, Y amount of time living apart, and Z amount of time restarting our relationship."

The boys nodded. "As much as I don't want that to happen," Fred said. "You do have a point. I think that living separately would be a good idea, at least for a little while. I could send out some letters and get you unblacklisted so you could actually find somewhere to go. What kind of a timeframe are you talking?"

"Maybe spend a couple of weeks just thinking about this, then if we decide to proceed, how about 6 months to a year living separately?"

"That sounds reasonable to me," George sighed, lightly scratching his jaw. "But there is a slight problem. Fred and I would still live together. I think it might be a good idea if we add a second entrance to the flat, maybe add a second kitchen and bathroom, get rid of a couple of doors. Essentially turn it into a duplex. I hardly think it's fair that we take time to think things through with you living somewhere else while Fred and I continue sleeping in the same bed."

Fred smiled lightly. "In 25 years, I've only slept alone about 100 times. Things are about to get significantly more lonely."

"How do you think I feel?" Hermione whispered. "At least you two would just be next door to each other. God knows where I'll be able to find a well priced flat."

"Do you want to just sod the whole thing?" Fred asked, resting his head against his hand, lightly tugging on his hair with the other.

"No," said Hermione. "I really do think that if we keep going like we are now, we might find ourselves damaged beyond repair. I want this, _you_, more than anything, and I don't want to risk anything damaging that."

"When do you think you'll be leaving?" George asking, lightly grasping her hand.

"As soon as I can find somewhere to go."

"Well," asked Fred, "before you do can you help us sort out the mess with making this into a duplex? You've always been much better at Charms and Transfigurations."

The three spent the rest of the day working on the flat. She added an entrance on the opposite end from the usual one, and added another kitchen and bathroom for Fred, removing the hallway and moving the bedroom door to open off of the sitting room. It took her a little while to get the work done, what with the boys debating over who would keep what.

"Honestly," she'd said. "It's not like you're getting divorced."

But no one said much of anything after that, all of them knowing that that metaphor was all too accurate.

At about half past five, Hermione left to go to go out and get groceries for dinner, and pick up the day's issue of The Daily Profit. She was walking back to the boys' flat with an armful of groceries when she felt a hand touch hers. The hand slid a bag of the groceries into their own, and fell into step beside her. "Do you realize that it's not exactly safe out here for you right now?"

She looked over to find Draco Malfoy, a cigarette in one hand and her groceries in another. "I'll walk you back, again. I'd hate for something to happen to you after I went through all that work to safe you in the first place. Where are your weasels?"

"At their house," Hermione said with a sigh, ignoring the fact that he was still calling them names. "We've hit a bit of a… rough patch… and I'm going to need to be finding a new place to live. Effective nearly immediately."

Draco took a drag of his cigarette and turned his head away from Hermione to exhale. "I'm not sure you would much appreciate this, but the Malfoy estate owns almost as much land worldwide as the queen. And of course, a large majority of it is in the UK. All of our real estate is not huge manors and sprawling gardens. There are actually quite a few cottages, homes, and condos. Until you work things out with the… Weasleys… I could give you the means to live in a fully furnished, beautiful place to live."

Hermione quickly looked up at him, and he looked down at her back, before turning his head to take another drag from his cigarette before tossing it in front of him and crushing the butt with his boot and they crossed over it. "What would you be getting out of it? I've known you for years, you've never done anything without knowing exactly how it would benefit you and yours."

Draco shifted the groceries to another hand and crossed the street, heading toward WWW. Beside the ally next to the entrance to the boys' homes, he stepped back, gesturing for Hermione to walk up the stairs first. She pushed the door open and walked inside, turning back when she realized that Draco was still standing in the doorway. When she looked at him, he held the bag of groceries out to her, but she rolled her eyes and headed into Fred's half of the apartment.

She set her bags on top of the range and began to unbag the groceries so she could make dinner, realizing that the chicken was in the bag Draco still had in his hand.

"Draco? Could you bring that?"

Even from the kitchen, she could hear the overdramatic sigh he let out. A few seconds later, he walked into the room, arm of groceries extended dramatically. He handed them to her before sinking heavily into one of the chairs at the counter.

"Don't look so put out. If you thought that was excruciating, then wait until you get a load of what I have you do next."

His head swiveled over to look at her, his large grey eyes open almost comically. She stifled a laugh and handed him a paring knife and some potatoes. "Skin and slice these like you would a Valerian root."

He frowned so deeply that it looked like the corners of his mouth were about to drop off of his face and started to cut the potatoes.

"I hate potions."

Hermione chuckled and tossed a carrot at him, turning back to the stove. "I don't really care. You're going to help me cook dinner for my boys, and I might even let you eat some."

"Might even let- woman, what do you think I am, a house elf?"

Hermione shook her head and took a bite of another baby carrot. "No, they complain loads less."

She felt something wet hit her neck and whirled around, to find another potato peeling soaring through the air to hit her in the face.

Hermione grabbed a handful of carrots and ducked behind the counter, carrot poised and ready to fling at the first sign of movement. There was a flash of white as Draco flew out from the other side, throwing potato peelings. They hurled the foods at each other, only stopping when a throat cleared above them. Hermione was crouched behind a cabinet door with her head poking over the top, and Draco was laying on his right side, left arm cocked back to throw.

"What in the name of Merlin are you two doing?"

"I want you to draw me like one of your French girls."

Hermione let out a snort and Fred cocked an eyebrow. "Er, okay, Malfoy. I'll get right on that, although it's a different Weasley who has most of the experience with French women."

Fred pulled out his wand a vanished the mess, putting a hand out to each of them to help them up.

"I should probably get going," Draco said quietly. "Owl me if you decide that you want to look at the property, eh?"

Hermione nodded and wrapped an arm around Fred's waist. Draco picked his coat up off of the floor where it had fallen and shrugged into it, reaching into one pocket to palm his cigarette case before nervously making eye contact with Fred. The redheaded man reached out his hand in a shake, and Draco hesitated for a moment before grasping it.

Maybe things had changed after all, Hermione thought. Although she didn't really know him all too well at that point, Hermione could easily see her and Draco becoming friends. He was, apparently, quite adept at dropping his callous exterior when he wanted to.

Draco left, and Fred picked up his abandoned knife and went back to chopping the potatoes. "What's for dinner, love? And what was Malfoy saying about property?"

"Au gratin and chicken. And I mentioned that I would be trying to find a new place to live and he suggested that I rent out one of the properties belonging to the Malfoy estate. He said he's got more of them than even he knows, so it's not like he would miss them. Is that alright with you?"

Fred shrugged. "It's not really my opinion that matters, is it? I don't ever claim to tell you what to do, but you know George might have a problem with it. We'll ask him when he gets in, yeah?"

She nodded, and he lightly bumped her hip with his, causing her to look up. He put a hand of the side of her face and tilted her head up, ducking in to steal a kiss.

"Wicked," he mumbled, breaking the kiss to go back to his chopping.

**A/N Not sure where to end that, and there is as good a place as any. Review for your outtake of Fred in Scotland. Tell me who you want to see more of!**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N Sorry. I just got pounded by real life. Hard.**

**A story of outtakes has been posted. So far I've uploaded a Fred/George/Hermione/Draco foursome for those who wanted to see it. Check it out. **

When George came home, Hermione and Fred had dinner waiting for him, each plate of potatoes and chicken underneath a well-placed stasis charm. When the door opened, Hermione and Fred leaped up to greet him. Fred and George shared a quick kiss before George ducked his head down to greet Hermione.

The three of them walked to the dining room and sat at the table. They removed the charms and immediately began to eat. "I went to talk to Lee," George said through a mouthful of chicken. "He says that the cottage his mum was trying to sell got bought by some Frenchman. But I think that Hannah and Neville might have a spare room above the Leaky Cauldron, and that's just down the street."

Fred lightly nudged Hermione in the side, but George noticed. "What? What was that for? You know something. What was that?" 

"George, I have something to tell you," Hermione began.

"Oh bullocks. You're not pregnant, are you?"

She chuckled in the back of her throat. "No. But you know how Draco and I have been becoming better friends?"

George nodded. "Oh Circe. I'm not sure I like the sounds of where this is going."

Fred poked him in the side and shook his head. "For heavens sake, will you just shut up and listen to the woman?"

"Thanks, Fred. Like I was saying, Draco and I are actually becoming friends. I saw him today and he suggested that I come to live with him in the ridiculously sprawling Malfoy estate. He said that there's a guesthouse isolated from the main building that I could stay in. I really don't want to do anything that you don't me to, though. I could try to find a place, or see if Neville and Hannah want me to come in."

George shook his head. "No, I don't that'll be necessary after all. I'd be more comfortable if maybe we could do something with him before you do, so I could feel better about letting you go. I don't mean to act like your father or anything; I don't want you to misunderstand me. I just don't want anything to happen to you, and I know that you've had problems with Draco in the past. I just care about you enough that I don't want you to end up hurt by him. Well, that, and that everything knows that he's devilishly attractive."

Hermione lightly grasped the men's hands, clasping them between hers. "I'm honored that you two care enough about me that you're afraid that I'd leave you for him. But, unless Draco has something that he's hiding, he's not my type. Two is better than one."

Fred took another plateful of food and ran a hand through his hair. "There's a Quidditch game tomorrow that George and I were going to. Puddlemere versus the Tornados. Ask him if he wants to come, I have a friend who could score us two more tickets so that all four of us could go."

"I don't think I want to go," Hermione said. "I think I want you three to try to get along on your own. I know you can. You're all good men, but I don't want to have to be a buffer between you. I want you try your hardest."

George nodded. "That makes sense. I promise I'll try to get along with him. For your sake. If you can put aside your differences with him, so can I. He _did_ defect before the war ended, after all. At least if things go stale we could just talk about the game."

"And even then," chipped in George, "It'd be an interesting conversation. As much as it pains me to admit, he was the second best seeker at Hogwarts in a while. Harry was still the best, though. Hell, Malfoy's even better that James was supposed to be."

Hermione reached an arm out and summoned a piece of paper and immediately jotted out a brief letter.

_Draco,_

_The boys have agreed to _consider_ your offer under one condition: you accompany them to a Quidditch game tomorrow. It's the Puddlemere game, Fred's got tickets. They don't seem too put off by the idea, I think that they're just more afraid than anything. Owl me back sometime before the morning if you can, so I can alert Fred to get another ticket. I wouldn't be there, but the boys have promised that they'll be on their best behavior. From the sounds of things, they're really excited._

_Looking forward to hearing from you,_

_Hermione_

She whistled for one of the boys' many owls and attached the letter to her leg, sending it off. Focusing back on the boys, she was unsurprised to hear that they were still talking about Quidditch. She took a moment to just look at them.

There were so many differences between them that she couldn't remember the last time she had thought of them as FredAndGeorge. They were Fred. and. George. George. And. Fred. They were two separate people, and even on the outside they were easy for her to tell apart, especially around the mouth. George's mouth was slightly poutier, and his lips pursed slightly when he smiled. Fred's smile was wider, and his lips thinner, although they had a completely separate smile they used when attempting to fool the others, large, and with almost every tooth showing.

Fred had a hint of a dimple in his cheek, and George's voice was slightly higher pitched. His long, lithe body tended to collapse into long lines and planes, while Fred had a habit of folding himself up and curling into corners or enclosed spaces.

Fred was slightly larger than George was, still playing Quidditch whenever possible, which George would often prefer to just relax. While George wasn't weak my any means, he _was_ less defined muscularly than Fred.

Thinking about the things he chose to do with said muscles had Hermione getting hot under the collar. She slowly plucked at the button at the top of her robes, sliding them down over her shoulders. The boys were still talking about sports, and neither noticed the loss of her robe. She dropped it to the floor and stood, still wearing an oxford and trousers. Neither of the boys looked up.

She lowly plucked open the buttons on the shirt, dropping it to the floor as well. She had her trousers off and with it before one of the boys spared a look in her direction. George's bright hazel eyes slid rakishly over her exposed skin, while Fred continued to draw out a diagrammed play on the table with his wand, tiny x's and o's flying around the surface.

George lightly bit one of those oh-so plump lips, looking up at her through his lashes. He winked at her, and she reached behind herself to undo her bra. Her breasts fell out, and she noticed his eyes slide lower. She shimmied the underwear down off of her hips, and was somewhat surprised to see the show in front of him, or notice his brother's intense arousal. George's face was flushed red, and he exhaled slowly, before scooting his chair back quickly.

Fred was shocked by the grating noise and his eyes shot up, widening when he realized what had been going on around him. "Oh holy fuck."

Hermione turned on her heel and strode towards the bathroom. She turned on the taps, steaming water streaming into the deep bathtub. She sunk into the hot water, her hair curling around her face. She relaxed into the water, and watched the door. A few minutes later, the door slid open and the two men walked in, their mouths slightly swollen.

They divestoed themselves of their clothes, looking at Hermione in the tub. Fred came to stand behind George, wrapping his hand around George's cock. Fred rested his chin on George's shoulder, whose head lolled back. He looked down his nose at Hermione, his hips lightly thrusting into Fred's hand.

Hermione let a hand slide down her hips to between her legs. Fred slid his hand down and away from George, gently pushing him down to the tub. George slid into the water, Fred coming in with him. Fred settled down into the water behind Hermione, pulling her down into the water on top of him, but he didn't enter her.

He buried his face in her neck, breathing in her skin and kissing her neck. She let on leg slide out, and gently rested her feet on either side of George's cock. She slowly rubbed it between her soles, the action causing her to inadvertently grind down on Fred. He leaned back, resting his elbows on the edge of the tub and leaning back. George helped her to lift up onto Fred's cock, the angle of the tub forcing him impossibly deep. She leaned her back against his chest, and he wrapped one of his long arms around her waist, thrusting his hips lightly.

George slid deeper into the water, his legs coming up to rest near Fred's arms. Hermione gently rested her hands on top of his calves, stroking his skin, slowly letting her hands slide up to rest on his inner thighs. She massaged his muscular legs in smooth upward motions, while he stroked his cock, the uncut skin sliding under his hand.

He lightly squeezed the head, precum welling to the surface. He swiped his thumb through the liquid, slipping his finger into Hermione's mouth. She sucked on his finger, cleaning it of the traces of his arousal. Fred swiveled his hips, pushing deeper into Hermione.

No one was talking, a rare occurrence for them. All of them, especially George, were rather vocal during sex. Hermione gently pulled George to stand, and had him walk towards her in the warm water. She gently slid his cock into her mouth, and bobbed her head back and forth over the smooth, spicy skin. Fred sped up his movements somewhat, his hands coming down to her hips to mover her over him. Knowing that this could be one o their last nights together for a while had them all focusing on their movements. George bent over Hermione to capture Fred's mouth in a kiss.

Hermione was surrounded on all sides by the Weasleys' hot, slightly reddened skin. As far as places to be went, she couldn't ask for a better one.

It didn't take long for them to finish, all of them wanting nothing more than to be close to the others.

Afterwards, they all lay in George's bed, long arms entwined with shorter ones, straight and fine red hair on top of thick and curly brown. An owl tapped at the window, and Fred waved a hand, causing it to swing open. The owl flew in and held a thin leg out to Hermione, who untied the letter and fed it a treat.

_Hermione, _

_It would seem that I have nothing better to do tomorrow than to accompany your men to the game. I assume that we will be flying to the game, tell them that I will come round their shop around ten... And that I expect no less than the Spanish Inquisition. _

_Draco Lucius Malfoy_

_Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,_ Hermione thought to herself with an internal giggle. She relayed the boys the message and Fred wrote a note to the friend who was supplying them with the tickets to request another. There was a note of sobriety in the air, all of them hoped the next day would go well, but knew that if it did, Hermione would be leaving for weeks. Months. Maybe even forever.

-0-

Draco was, as promised, waiting for Fred and George at the register of WWW at exactly 10 o'clock, dressed in a black oxford, black sweater, and back linen trousers. He was always in black, and it made his shock of white hair stick out that much more. He was casually leaning up against the counter, shifting a bag of Jumping Jelly Babies between his long pale hands.

When the three of them walked up, he gently set them back on the counter and turned to shake the men's hands.

"Thank you," Fred said while letting go of Draco's hand.

Draco quizzically raised one smooth while eyebrow. "For…?"

"Well," Fred said. "It would seem that you keep coming to the aid of our Hermione, so I'd just like to thank you for putting aside your…differences… to help her."

Draco nodded. "You're welcome, but I did not do it for thanks. When I defected I did it because I realized how wrong I was, not because I realized that The Dark Side was losing."

Hermione was standing off to the side, shifting her weight back and forth. "Anything to say, Melete?"

George's eyebrows knitting together, and he leaned against the counter a few feet away from Draco. "Melete? What is that?"

Hermione smiled slightly at Draco. "She was one of the original three Boetian muses. She was the muse of thought and meditation. Her name means 'ponder', or 'contemplation'."

Draco nodded, "Fitting, I thought."

Hermione beckoned him forward, and reached for her wand. "Cm'ere, Draco."

He grudgingly walked forward. "Yes?"

"Cigarette case, if you please." Draco sighed slightly and reached into his pocket, pulling out the monogrammed silver case. He set it in her hand, and she waved her wand over it before waving her wand from the top of his head to the bottom of his ribs. "There. Now you can smoke. Anywhere. _Without _bothering everyone."

"Really?" he asked. "You'll have to teach me that charm. Do you mind?" he asked, looking at the Weasleys. "It _is_ your store, after all."

"No, go ahead," George said. "If Hermione's right, which she most likely is, then there's no reason that you can't."

Draco lit a cigarette and slowly exhaled, tension that the three hadn't noticed melting away. Fred cautiously sniffed the air. "Smells like… tea."

"Mum's bread."

Hermione nodded. "It smells like whatever you most reminds you of a happy memory. It won't smell the same to any two people, most likely. It smells to me like my father's aftershave. That's why I said that it wouldn't bother people. It'll probably do nothing but calm them. Right, then. It's almost half past, you need to get going."

Hermione reached to her feet and grabbed the brown messenger bag she had backed. "You've got butterbeer, sandwiches, treats, at least three pairs of omnoculars, that broom compass Ron bought you for your birthday, as well as an emergency wand in case something happens."

Fred chuckled, and kissed her forehead. "Yes mum. I'm sure you packed a sweater and some socks, as well. Alright, we'll all come back in one piece, I promise."

Hermione glared at him slightly, and George smiled, leaning in to kiss her. "Bye, love."

Draco waved at her and thanked her again for the charm on his cigarettes.

When the boys left, Hermione flipped the sign on the shop window to 'Open', and keyed her wand into the wards of the register. _Open for business._

-0-

"Right," George said, tapping his wand against a map of England before touching it to the compass. "Gloucester is 146.5 kilometers from here. Malfoy, I don't know what kind of broom you brought, but we've got Cleansweeps. It'll be...oh, about and hour and fifteen minutes to get to the pitch."

"Oh!" Draco exclaimed, reaching into the bag he'd brought with him. He pulled out three Firebolts, handing one to the each of the brothers. "I thought these might speed up the trip a tick."

George tried not to look surprised, and nodded. "Right. Well. Then it'll take us about 35 minutes. Isn't that nice. Alright, well, off we go then."

The three rose into the air, and George looked down at the compass he had affixed to the handle. Fred cast a mild sonorous so that they could hear each other.

"Well, Malfoy. What have you been up to since we last met?"

"Well, I was actually contacted by Head Goblin of Gringotts. I've been doing some work similar to that of your brother Bill. Except my work is much more low level. But because of my… experience… in dark magic, they have me working on relaxing curses on objects recovered from seized vaults."

"Oh, wow," George said. "That's actually really fascinating. What kind of things do they usually have you working on?"

"They had me sorting through my somewhat unstable aunt's vault a couple of days ago. There was a settee that she'd had for years in that vault. When they were destroying the items in Voldemort's Palace of Horrors, they discovered one identical to it. It was discovered that one would transport you to the other, when one of the investigators laid down on it and found himself trapped in dearest Auntie's vault. Thankfully, one of the people at the Palace was one of the Goblins who had recently seen to Bellatrix's vault. They immediately sent someone to come along and rescue him, but they needed to find somewhat to break the bond. So I got to spend time un-Voldemorting a floral chaise."

Fred and George snickered, imagining the image that he had supplied. "Do you mind if I ask you a somewhat personal question?"

The men looked at each other before nodding. "Sure."

"When did you two realize you were…"

"Feeling more than brotherly love?" Fred supplied.

"Ready to bump uglies?"

"Getting a chubby at the thought of our best friend?"

Draco held out a hand to stop them. "I'm sure that any of those work. But what I was really talking about was more of the first one. When did you two really fall in love?"

George spoke first. "I don't know about what it was for him, but for me it was kind of… you know how when you spend so much time with a person, they start to grow on you? Not saying that Fred's off-putting, or anything. But it was like… I started seeing things about him that I knew most people didn't. We were always close; you had to be in a family our size living in a home the size of The Burrow. There wasn't enough money for everyone to have their own bedroom before we were born.

"Considering the fact that we're pureblooded, we aren't affluent. At all. Bill had his own room, and Charlie and Percy shared one. Once Ron was born, they expanded the space, but decided to only add two more rooms. They figured that the two of us were so close that we wouldn't mind sharing a room still.

"Once we hit puberty and went off to Hogwarts, that's when things got weird. We'd been sharing a bed for 11 years of our lives, and when we went to school they put us in separate beds. We eventually just started sharing a bed again, no one ended up caring as much as we had thought they would. A few people said things, but most people just figured it was because we were Weasleys.

"We eventually came upon the Marauder's Map, and after that point, we really started to form a real relationship because we were able to find places that were astonishingly isolated."

Fred took over at that point. "We didn't have a real relationship until our second year. It was getting harder for us to hide, but we somehow managed to pull it off. Slytherins used to make comments about the things we must do to each other. People used to say things along the lines of all of our family sharing a bed. Someone once said that no one knew if Dad was really Ginny's father… I think it was Marcus Flint, but someone said that Bill or Charlie was her father.

"All I remember was being absolutely ashamed of just being a Weasley. There is absolutely nothing about being myself that I should've been ashamed of, but I had stopped talking to George for really the first time in my life. It didn't last exceptionally long, but it was a little bit unnerving to feel like I was not someone who was human. Hermione began to notice that George and I weren't speaking, and she somehow tricked us into talking again.

"It wasn't until fourth year or so that we started having a… sexual… relationship. We were able to keep everything very hush-hush until we met Hermione again a few months ago. Thanks to her, I'm not ashamed of being me. I'm not afraid of being in love with my brother, or afraid of being in love with a woman on top of that. I don't mean to have told you more than you wanted to know, but I hope we answered that as well as we could."

Draco nodded. "Thank you for sharing. I really regret the part that I played to make you feel that way."

"I appreciate that," George said.

"Thank you," Fred whispered.

George threw his brother a look, an intimate look that made Draco feel like he was intruding.

"There's Gloucester," George called, pointing down. They began to fly down, landing outside of the pitch. Draco's brooms were placed back in his bag, and Hermione's bag was thrown over a shoulder. The tickets were surrendered and magical traces were put on those who had already paid.

Fred had managed to get them good tickets, and they were sitting high up and close to the field. The men were all feeling a little bit closer after their talk on the way over. They didn't run out of things to talk about during the game, discussing things of greater variety than just what was going on on the field. Sure, they discussed things like Volger's attempt at flacking, or Howell trying to blog Rackharrow. But they also were able to talk about many things is their personal lives as well as things occurring in the wizarding world.

It was an awkward camaraderie but it worked. They were realizing that Draco was, in fact, someone who had the best intentions in giving Hermione a place to live.

-0-

Hermione closed the store and went upstairs to take a shower. She didn't seem to be able to find anything that she needed. Where was all of her stuff?

She went into the bedroom and was surprised to see that the boxes of her things were gone as well, and a folded parchment was sitting on the bed.

_Hermione, _

_Your things are at the manor. He's a good guy after all._

_We _will_ wait for you. Forever._

_Fred and George_

**Sorry, again. Any day now (otherwise known as… about a week. Or three), I'll be uploading a Veela!Draco and Hermione one-shot, and I've got a Bill/Hermione floating around in my head that was influenced by a John Lennon song. That'll be up sometime. Probably before New Years. Probably. Maybe.**

**Anyone who recognized the Monty Python quote in here gets a sneak peak of chapter twelve. **


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N Tell me, reviewers, what do you want to see? Tell me a scene that you want to see, and if I have more than one person asking about any of them, then I'll try to write it in somewhere. I promise I'll try my hardest. It's hard to write when only I only get three reviews. http:/ tinyurl. com/ 3htuopd is how I imagined the boys while watching Hermione. Oh, and there's a beautiful painting on DeviantArt by batmancried that more or less sums up my image of Pansy.**

* * *

><p><em>The score is 87 to 35, Puddlemere. Tutshill's Montieth is closing in on the snitch, though. Oh, and there's a bludger hit by Greengrass soaring towards Belcher. Belcher's dodged it, and oh, now it's flying towards Tutshill, and Royden's flown through the hoop to avoid it, Quaffle still in hand, that'll be a foul then, Quaffle to Puddlemere. <em>

The three men were sitting in the skybox. Literally. They were flying in the box above the pitch at high speeds, safe and sound in highly cushy chairs. They were leaning back, beers in hand, watching the game, Draco with his cigarette in hand. George reached into the bag that Hermione had packed and pulled out some sandwiches and another round of beers.

"Who do you think is going to win?" Fred asked, cracking the lid.

Draco finished the beer he already had in his hand, and opened the one he had handed him.

"Well Puddlemere is up now, but Tutshill has Monteith and Hollingberry."

George nodded and swallowed a mouthful of sandwich. "Ah, you're right. But Puddlemere has Ethelbard. If Elthelbard can get the snitch then all bets are off."

Fred tittered and raised his beer. "And think about this though, it doesn't matter if Monteith gets the snitch if Puddlemere gets even farther ahead. They could win, even if Ethelbard can't catch it."

Draco nodded at the points made leaned forward. "But look, down there. Royden just got the Quaffle through the hoop, six times in a row while you made that little point. 95 to 90, Tutshill. If they keep this up, it's any man's game. And besides, who cares who wins? They're the two best teams around, and it's been a good game so far. They're so evenly matched that this is the sort of game that could go on for days."

Fortunately, it didn't. Ethelbard reached out and claimed the snitch, ending the game in favor of Puddlemere. The guys stayed in the booth smoking and schmoozing until it got so dark out that they were unable to fly home. The reduced visibility due to the dark and the ever-present English rain would have made the flight dangerous, so they chose to apparate, the Weasleys back to the flat, and Draco to the manor where he would make sure everything was ready before he went back to fetch Hermione. They packed all of their things into the bag that Hermione had given them, including Draco's generously provided brooms.

-0-

Hermione had been at the shop for ages, and it felt like no one would be coming in when the bell on the door chimed. The boys had been gone for a long three hours, and there had only been as many customers in as much time.

She was leaning against the counter flipping through a Potions journal when the chime had happened.

"Welcome to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Today you can find the Jumping Jelly Babies on sale for 2 sickles and 15 knuts, and with the Equinox coming up, you can buy the Deflagration Deluxe, a deluxe selection of Weasleys' Wild-Fire Whiz-Bangs, for only 15 Galleons."

"I thought I might find you here."

The voice was another that she hadn't expected to hear again. She looked up and was surprised to see that the witch in front of her had gotten prettier with age, her features softening and becoming more gentle, her short black hair tousled about her face, lips red and heavily made up.

She had the grace that seemed to accompany the Purebloods, or at least the Slytherins. After all, the Weasleys were pureblooded, but there were many words that could be chosen to describe them before someone would settle on the word 'graceful'.

"Hello, Pansy."

Pansy gave her a light smile that showed only a hint of her teeth. Hermione had never been as good at reading people as she was at reading books, and she was unable to tell whether it was a genuine smile that just didn't quite fit with her static beauty, or if it was far more ill intentioned.

"When Draco told me that you would be moving in with him, I was understandably… shocked. I'd heard, of course, about what happened with Vincent and Gregory, but I'd only really heard their version of the story, Draco doesn't much care to talk about his personal affairs. I was under the impression that he had taken you and claimed you as his in the alley; after all, with the supposed Veela in his family I wouldn't have been surprised. I finally did get him to talk, though, and I was quite surprised to find that he had all but the best intentions. But when he told me that all he sought was a friend, I realized that the boy is probably the smartest that I know.

You're notorious for showing compassion when you probably shouldn't, and you always help wayward creatures. You took to Mr. Weasley and Mr. Potter, despite the way they had originally treated you. However, they did save your life that night in the bathroom. What I'm curious of, however," Pansy took a moment to shift her weight, leaning against the counter on her elbows and loosening the fingers of her gloves, pulling them off of her thin white hands. "Is what exactly it takes to become your friend. Because if you can befriend a man who terrorized you as a child, two men who almost got you killed countless times, and find it in you to love two more… well. One can never have enough friends, and what with Millicent being unfortunately gored by a raging troll, her great aunt I'm sure, I find myself without female companionship. And you seem like someone who would seem to make a fit friend. You found it in you to befriend one Slytherin, can you deal with another?"

Hermione carefully regarded the woman in front of her. Sure, Pansy had nearly led to her demise more than once, but she was one of the few Slytherins who was never outwardly hostile. It was well known that Hermione was not liked by Pansy, but she had never physically attacked her, unlike some of her housemate.

"Why me? Why now?"

Pansy smiled, a true smile, much prettier, that made it seem like she had been expecting that question. "When we were in school, I think Draco fancied you. He would rant and rave about you, not just the "Golden Trio", but you in particular, almost like he seemed that you went out of your way to annoy him. I don't think I realized it at the time, but it was because he was so fascinated with the enigma that was… you. You're brilliant, even I know that, and everyone knows that I'm not the sharpest. But if you can be friends with someone as intense as he… I just… I need someone sometimes, and a friend of mine can't be a pushover. When I thought of confident, strong, brilliant witches, you were the only one who immediately came to my mind."

Hermione stuck out a hand. Pansy looked at it for a moment before putting her hand in it. They shook, eyes meeting before Hermione smiled. With a wave of her wand the sign to the shop door flipped to closed, and she grabbed her cloak and bag from the hook behind the register.

"Well, come on then. We'll go get lunch and a cuppa, and you can tell me all it is that I'll have to know to be the friend that you need. I'm not going to change myself to suit what you want, of course, but I will try to do whatever it is in my power to be a friend. How does that sound?"

Pansy smiled that shocking smile again and tucked her gloves into a pocket, holding out her elbow to Hermione, who took it with an equally brilliant smile. "That sounds fabulous. Now, I know the best place only a few blocks away, their chowder is to die for…"

Hermione smiled at gave a quick thought to how the boys were getting on before focusing her attention on Pansy. Pansy needed a friend, and she'd be damned if she didn't give her what she needed.

-0-

"… And I'll have the clam chowder with garlic bread." Pansy declared, snapping her menu shut. She handed it to the waiter and took a sip of her cup of tea.

"What happened, Pansy?"

Pansy took another sip and rested her head on one of those long thin hands. She took a long moment to compose her thoughts before smoothing down her hair with one hand and started to play with her napkin with the other.

"Whatever it is... You can tell me. I promise I won't judge you. I'm not exactly in a place to judge anyone right now."

Pansy nodded and sat up even straighter in the chair, taking yet another sip of tea before composing herself enough to speak. "I'm sorry. This is just so much harder than I anticipated."

Pansy folded her thin lily white fingers tipped in red together, and straightened the fork, knife, and spoon on her napkin before rotating her teacup 45 degrees to the left and chuckling.

"I'm sorry. I get antsy when I get nervous. After the fall of the Dark Lord, when I went back to finish my seventh year, I took a few classes on Muggle History and Muggle Studies. I ended up spending quite a bit of time in the non-magical communities in the area. And then I met this guy... Quentin. We were together for a couple of years, and I had somehow managed to hide my magic from him. We'd moved in together, he was talking about marriage… I thought I would be able to keep up the charade. I was willing to give up everything for him."

Pansy took a moment to gently stir her cooling tea and take a sip, obviously trying to calm herself down. Hermione didn't like where it sounded like this story was going and was starting to understand why Pansy needed a friend. Pansy visibly steeled herself and continued on with her story.

"One day when I thought I was alone in his flat, I charmed the sink to wash the dirty dishes, and I had all of the little things lying around the apartment levitating to their proper places when he walked in the door. He pretended to understand, but it was obvious that it really did bother him more than he let on. In a way, we were almost like Eileen Prince and Tobias Snape. He claimed that it didn't bother him, but it was easy to see that he didn't feel comfortable knowing that I wasn't the frail, delicate, dependent woman he'd thought I was."

Pansy blinked rapidly, the tears coming to her eyes. Hermione fished around in her bag and pulled out a cotton handkerchief, handing it to the other woman. Pansy sent her a grateful smile and dabbed at her eyes before continuing on with her story.

"That night, I promised him that I would give up my magic for him. I gave him my wand, and he had it locked up in a safe that I didn't know the combination to. After a few weeks, things started to go back to normal. I wasn't using magic, but I'd gotten pretty used to not using it in his company anyway. About a month after he took my wand was the first night that he hit me.

"I think it was because he realized that I wasn't as strong as he'd thought I was.

"He didn't know me as Pansy Parkinson, the hideously pug nosed brat that rode around on Draco's coattails. But when he finally called things off, he didn't do it in person. He packed up all of his things and bought another place, just... Disappearing. He changed his phone numbers, got a new job... He eventually sent me a letter calling me all sorts of names. There was a long time where I just curled up on the bed and didn't move. I was able to get my wand back, but it didn't really matter. My magic started to wane, I wasn't eating. I could barely perform a proper cooling charm on my pillow.

"Draco eventually came and dragged me from the room, forced me to take a shower, and made me a sandwich. It took a while but I eventually got fairly close to normal. I'm still not as powerful as I used to be, and even walking for long periods of time exhausts me. I was in town once, and I saw him walking arm in arm with Millicent Bulstrode. A couple months later was when she got in that tussle with that troll, and he came back. He said that he had gotten my address from Millicent before she died. He'd told me that he had sought her out because he'd heard me talk about her, realized that she was like me, and wanted to learn what he hadn't been able to with me.

"It took me ages to realize that he was full of shit. By that time, he had me so in his control. He still does. I can't leave him; I'm all he has. He'd die without me Hermione. That's why I need your help."

Hermione felt her eyes widen. "Whoa, wait, what? You're still with him? After all of that? Please, tell me that you're kidding."

Pansy gently shook her head, pulling a long chain necklace from her collar. "Do you know what this is, Hermione?"

Hermione held the charm in her hand, magic shimmering slightly around her hand before the freckles and scars on the back of her hand faded away. "A long term glamour," she gasped, her eyes shooting up to meet Pansy's. The darker haired woman slowly lifted the chain from her neck, pale skin turning into a myriad of more sickening colors. Purples, yellows, blues, reds.

She quickly dropped it back down around her neck and tucked it back under her collar. "Draco gave me this. Professor Snape used to own it. He'd use it to hide the marks that the Dark Lord would leave on his skin. Draco's working on a way to try to get me out. Maybe send me to Spain, or Italy. He wants me to leave for a while, get the glamour changed to something more… blonde… and just lay low. I'm scared Hermione. I can't bear the thought of leaving, but I'm afraid of staying even more."

Pansy wiped her eyes again, and took a shaky inhalation, trying to calm herself down. Hermione reached into her bag and pulled out a vial of a calming drought, handing it to Pansy. The waiter came back with their soup, but neither girl paid it much attention, instead choosing to continue the conversation.

Hermione circled a finger around the rim of her teacup to reheat it and took a long sip. "You told me that you needed a friend, but it sounds like there was another reason you specifically sought me out. Why _me_? If you needed a friend, it makes sense that you would have chosen someone from Slytherin, like Daphne, Hestia, even Alcmene. Why me?"

Pansy hesitated for a moment before nodding. "You're the best witch of the age, it's been proven. I need someone that I wasn't friends with before. He knows everything about people I know, and he's heard enough about my school days to think that I would never come to you for help. I need someone who can make me a new glamour charm. I heard that you could make one that is can manifest in different ways. Draco told me that you could make it so that I can quickly change my appearance without having to use my magic as much. I need to be able to change quickly. It's getting harder to hide from him."

Hermione was shocked. No one should try to have that much control over someone. Listening to Pansy's description of the way that Quentin treated her though, it sounded that it hadn't started until he discovered her magic. But maybe he had been the same way in the past, and she just hadn't been able to notice it because she had cared about him so much.

Pansy stood and rested her napkin on the table next to her bowl. "I need to go. I've been gone for far too long already, and I really cannot afford to have him look for me. I'll owl you when I can, or I'll come find you. It would be best if you do not try to find me."

Pansy walked away, her black hair ruffled slightly by the increasing breeze. Hermione watched her leave before placing a few galleons on the table and slipping on her coat, heading back in the opposite direction. She headed up to George's flat and immediately headed over to the fireplace. Once the room was suitably warm, she slid out of her coat and poured herself a glass of wine. She picked up a book about wizarding customs from the coffee table that she'd left there a few days prior, and tried to read but found it difficult to focus on the words.

When she thought about it, she was lucky. Very lucky. She had two beautiful men who would jump over hill and over dale for her, and they frequently told her as much. And she had great friends. Harry, Ginny, Draco… Ron, before. And then there was Pansy. It seemed as though every time Pansy had her chance at happiness within her grasp it was cruelly taken from her.

She felt the book slip from her fingers to the floor, and shook her head, deciding to read instead of focusing on Pansy's misfortune. She blinked a few times and tried to focus on the words in front of her. She was beginning to think that it was pointless when a phrase caught her eye: _which results in a wizard being able to love both of the other participants and increasing the chances of happiness and reproduction._

Uhm, what?

She flipped back a page and began to read.

_For a yet unknown reason, the majority of children born from magical relations are male, increasing the chances of an unproportionate number of males to females when it comes time for reproduction. As such, nearly every wizard is omnisexual to at least a certain point. When, for one reason or another, the population of the wizarding community is compromised, relationships will begin to revert to a two to one ratio, in which two men and one woman will be able to successfully have a working relationship. _

_When relationships as such are needed, wizards will begin to seek out their best potential mates from each gender. A wizard who would not typically have found himself attracted to a male would find himself seeking one out, which results in a wizard being able to love both of the other participants and increasing the chances of happiness and reproduction._

_When all of the people in the relationship have the ability to love each other, there are less chances of animosity between the men, and the chances of competition between the men would decrease, as they would also be trying to impress each other, rather than just the woman. Relationships like these are highly stable when dealt with appropriately. When the need for children has been met, the triads will often_

Hermione flipped the page and was alarmed to find that the next thing in the book was comparing pros and cons of different types of wizarding robes from the 14th century. She flipped the cover to read the back, and groaned when she realized what she had in her hand.

_This book is a collection of works retrieved in part from the wreckage of famous libraries, including the library in Alexandria, the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, the Imperial Library of Constantinople, and Glasney College in Cornwall. Due to the nature of the destruction caused to the original works, many are not known to exist in their entirety, and are published here for your convenience in their salvaged forms. _

She felt like she could cry. It had never occurred to her to do research on her relationship with the boys as she had figured it was a rarity, but from the sounds of things it was a genetic failsafe, and would be happening sooner or later throughout the community. She glanced at the clock and realized that the boys would be coming home at anytime, and she needed to start dinner.

-0-

It was late by the time the boys had stopped celebrating and finally come back home. Draco had gone home for a while to double check that his house elves had collected Hermione's things during the day as asked and had placed them in the wing of the house that was set aside for her. He was going to be coming back around eight to get Hermione, but until then, she was the boys'.

They checked Fred's flat first for any sign of Hermione, but there was none. There was, however, a muted banging on the other side of the wall.

They headed back out and next door to George's, where Hermione was crouched next to a cupboard trying to reach a pot near the back. Fred slipped his arm in next to her to grab the item in question, placing it in her hands. She had a slightly bewildered look on her face, somewhat unsure of how she should act towards them. They weren't going to keep their relationship where it was, but would she still be allowed to hug them? To kiss them?

She was relieved when the decision was taken from her in the form of two warms bodies sandwiching her between them. Fred twined an arm around her waist while his other hand went up to smooth her hair. George rested his hands on Fred's hips, holding her tighter between them.

"Forget dinner," George whispered. "We have until eight when Draco comes back to take you, and I want to have something to remember when I'm alone."

As cheesy and off putting as that would have sounded otherwise, it was a completely appealing idea at the time, and Hermione gently wiggled herself out of their grasp to go to the bedroom.

"I want you two to count to 300. Then, follow me."

Hermione walked to the bedroom and quietly shut the door behind her, bemoaning the fact that all of her things we already gone. But no matter, she was a capable witch who was running out of time to make due with what she had. She grabbed her wand and quickly removed all clothing save for her bra and underwear. She slightly changed the cut on both of them, and changed the color to a deep magenta, the color that the boys tended to fixate on most often. She defrizzed her hair and lightly fluffed it, before gently laying down on George's bed, waiting for them to finish counting. A few moments later, the door was slowly pushed open, and the two were standing there, shoes off, pant legs rolled to just above the ankles, vests unbuttoned, collars loosened, ties unknotted, and sleeves pushed up their strong forearms.

They simply stood there for a long moment, just watching her. Just… imprinting the image of her in their eyes, all of them thinking that once they applied actual effort to the relationship, it might not turn out to be what they really did need.

There was a chance that this was their last, and not one of them was keen on wasting it.

Fred was the first to move. He slid his vest off, draping it over the arm of a chair, and placed his tie on top of it, before following with his shirt. At that time, George moved from the door, mimicking his brother's actions, until both of them stood there in their boxers, the same magenta that Hermione had made her underwear.

They lay down on the bed next to her, Fred on her left and George on her right. There were hands everywhere, but it was more of a sensual action than a sexual one, no one was blatantly groping, instead there was massaging and caressing. This would be their last time together for a while, if not forever, and no one wanted it to end before they had had their fill of the others.

They took turns kissing lazily, taking care not to monopolize any one person's time. Fred's hands were hot and firm as he rubbed Hermione's shoulders and back while she pressed kisses to George's jaw. There was an odd, heavy feeling in the air, and no one spoke, as if words would be just enough to ruin the moment.

Fred ended up being the one to create the catalyst for things progressing. He had reached around Hermione to reach George and was trailing his hands down George's back when he hit a particularly sensitive spot on his lower back. The sensation caused George to arch his back and inadvertently press his thigh into Hermione's center. She let out a low moan and Fred immediately pressed his lips to hers.

"I need you," she whispered, as if talking louder would ruin the moment. "I need to feel you."

Fred lay down on his back on the bed, pulling Hermione to him for a brief moment. He kissed her softly and held her body to his for a moment before he reached for the wand lying on the bedside table and whispered a lubricating spell. He turned Hermione so that her back was to him and slowly entered her. Her legs immediately moved to his sides so that she could move herself over him, but he quickly remedied that by coaxing them down with his hands and gently pulled her so that her back rested on his chest.

George leaned down and ducked his head to kiss first Hermione, then his brother, before placing himself at Hermione's entrance. He slowly pushed in, the rocking of his body moving Hermione over Fred. Fred let his hands move to her hips to help him move in her, although he mostly left the effort to George's movements. They were all only a few inches apart, and George ducked his head slightly to kiss each of his lovers in turn.

George never would have guessed it before. He simply would not have figured that he could find happiness in the first place, let alone with two different people. When he'd first realized that he was in love with Fred, he'd all but given up hope of ever truly being happy, of ever having kids. He felt that he was the luckiest bastard ever born if he was able to find love like this twice.

All Hermione could feel was heat. It was spreading from somewhere inside of her and engulfing her from the inside out. Or maybe it was the heat from the boys engulfing her from the outside in. She couldn't tell, and she didn't want to, as it made no real difference to her. Fred shifted slightly and all of a sudden the two were pressed closer together inside of her, and she knew that they had to have felt each other, separated by nothing but a thin membrane.

Fred was overwhelmed. Inside, all he could feel was his love for the two people who were moving above him. Outside, all he could feel was the heat of Hermione and the weight of their bodies on him. It wasn't quite unbearable yet, but even when it reached that point he would be unlikely to say anything about it, as the loss would be more uncomfortable than the pressure.

Normally, their actions were hurried and frantic, but now they just focused on each other and the sensations they could cause for the others. Fred let a hand trail up and reach up and around, gently playing with Hermione's clit. That, combined with the ever-spreading heat inside of her, made Hermione the first to come. She came with a low moan, and a hand went to the hair of each of the boys. She needed something tangible between her fingertips.

When she came, she tightened down on the boys, and the change in sensation was enough to make them follow soon after.

Glancing at the clock, they had just enough to take a shower before Draco was due to return. It was a slow shower, but not for the reason that delayed them most mornings. They were taking the time to make sure that they were all washed clean and did so using their hands, rather than a loofah or washcloth. They dried carefully, taking the time to say with their actions what they knew they couldn't say with words. They dressed slowly, and were all standing in the sitting room, hand in hand, when the floo flashed green and Draco stepped through. After a quick greeting, Hermione moved to follow him to the floo.

"Malfoy Manor," he called as he was engulfed in green.

Hermione grabbed a hand of the fine powder and stood in the fireplace. She made eye contact with the boys, who still had their hands clasped together, knuckles white in the only show of tension, and mouthed _I love you_, before throwing the powder to her feet.

"Malfoy Manor," she called, watching the boys and their kitschy flat fade away as a very different scene took its place.

Draco was calmly seated on the arm of a couch facing the fireplace awaiting her. When she stepped through he smiled at her and stood.

"Okay, it's a Wednesday. Which means, it's halfway through what is bound to be a droll week. Which also means, that it's time for us to get absolutely sloshed on quality spirits. But first, I'll show you your rooms, and we'll eat dinner."

Draco extended an elbow and she placed her hand on it. He led her out of the room toward a flight of stairs. "Don't worry about remembering where things are," he said. "I've got a Marauder-like map for you."

She quirked an eyebrow at him. "Yes, yes. I know all about that little map. In fact, I knew about it when we were at school. But more on that later. I heard that Pansy came and talked to you today. I told her she should, but she didn't seem to think that you'd take her well. I told her that if you could handle talking to me, then you could handle her, but no, Parkinson knows all."

Hermione chuckled internally at the way Draco went on about things, and started talking about Pansy.

"I was a little confused at first. But it sounds like she needs a confidante who happens to be good enough with magic to protect her when her own can't. And I realize that she may originally have come to me just because I'm strong, but if she needs someone to actually be there for her, then I want to be someone she can truly trust."

Draco paused at the top of the stairs and put his hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him.

"No. She originally came to you because she saw that I was happier and wanted to know who could possibly have made me as happy as I am now. She asked me if I had a new girlfriend. When I told her no, she asked if I had a new boyfriend. After I managed to convince her that I was not getting laid and that was _not_ the reason for the change, I was able to tell her that what I had really needed was a good friend, and that I was able to find one in you. She realized that you would be someone she could talk to and trust if you were willing to put up with a prat like me."

"You're not a prat," Hermione whispered. "I think you were just a bit misguided."

He smiled down at her and led her farther into the sprawling house. He opened a door to the left and led her in.

Inside was a large sitting room, with a bedroom visible through a door to the right, and a bathroom on the left. Hermione's things had been arranged in the room, she was somewhat confused.

"Who brought my things in?"

Draco lightly called out, "Mitzi, Rosi!"

With a crack, two elves popped into the room. Hermione turned to glare at Draco.

"Elves? You have _elves_?"

Draco shook his head. "No. I have servants who happen to be elves. I gave them clothes after Father died, but many of them chose to stay, especially the ones who more or less raised me. Mitzi and Rosi were the ones who mostly watched over this wing of the house, and when I clothed them, they said that they were going to stay so that they could help the friend of… who was it?"

The smaller one took a step forward. "Luciana, sir. We have stayed to help the friend of Mistress Luciana."

Draco shook his head. "I don't know a Luciana. Do you? The only Luciana I know of last walked these halls five or six hundred years ago. I hope."

Hermione shook her head. "I don't know of one either."

"Well," Draco said, "At any rate, this is Mitzi and Rosi. They are two of my favorites in the whole house. These two are really something. They more or less raised me when my mother had campaigning to do. I think you'll like them."

Each one of the elves looked up at her with their large eyes, giggling and pushing each other when she smiled down at them.

"Right," Draco started. "We've got wine, brandy, rum, beers-"

"Draco, I'm sorry, but I really don't feel like getting pissed tonight, as appealing as that sounds. I think I'm just going to go to bed early. Next Wednesday, though. It's on."

He smiled at her and lightly hugged her. "Alright. I'll see you in the morning. Night, Hermione."

"Good night, Draco."

Hermione shut the door behind him, and one of the elves, Mitzi, handed her a pair of silk pajamas before winking out of sight with Rosi. She quickly changed for bed and sunk into the plush sheets.

Tomorrow, she had much to do. She still had work in the morning, and then she needed to research how to help Pansy, and then try to find out more about the mystery surrounding the triad relationship.

* * *

><p><strong>AN I'm sorry about the long wait, someone I've known since I was about 8 or 9 passed away very suddenly in one of those ways that makes you chuckle when you hear about it, and then to realize that it really happens… Like, how often do you read a FF where someone just has an aneurysm and dies, and you think _really?_ It happened to this woman I knew, and they took her off of life support about a week and a half ago, and I haven't really wanted to write but I figured I ought. I meant for this to be a bit longer, but I really just wanted to get this out to you guys.**

**Review, tell me your plans for the winter hols.**


	13. Chapter 13

As the floo flashed out and the green light faded, George's knees began to shake. He lunged forward and almost pitched into the ground but Fred grabbed his shoulders and pulled George to his feet. George's tremors did not lessen, even after Fred wrapped his arms around his brother.

"Why, Fred? Why?"

Fred ran his hands over George's hair, trying to soothe him. "She just needs some room. You know her, _we_ know her. She likes to look at everything from every possible angle, but she didn't do that when she made the choice to move in with us."

George made an affronted noise in the back of his throat. "What, so are you saying that we need to give her time to change her mind? That she made the wrong decision?"

Fred froze. "That is definitely _not_ what I was trying to say."

George stepped backwards. "Then why did you hesitate?"

"_Because I can't believe that you would ask me that!"_

"You know it's true Fred? Once she has time to think about it, she's going to pick, not the two brothers who can't resist the pull of each others flesh, but the gorgeous Slytherin, who has a reputation for being the number one knicker dropper in England."

Fred actively moved farther away from George. "Why are you trying to make everything out to be so much worse than it is? Do you not _want_ Hermione to come back? And why are you making me out to be something horrible?"

George lunged towards Fred, grabbing his collar. "You did this to yourself. This is _your_ fault. I wish and I wish that one day you'll hurt as much as you've made me hurt."

Fred pushed George backwards and fixed his collar. "How have I _possibly_ hurt you? Every time anything happens you go and throw a little hissy fit and blame those around you. Why don't you look at this like a rational person. Hermione needs space. We will give it to her. And once she's had her space, she'll come back. Because she loves us."

"No!" George shouted, poking Fred in the chest with a finger. "She loves _you_. And it's not fair! It's not fair! You buy her jewelry and you make friends with her friends and you give her everything her little heart could desire, ensuring that there is no possible way she could love me like she loves you!"

Fred shook his head and pushed George back again. "I don't want her unless I have you too. This barely worked with just the two of us, and it won't work with just one of us and her. We work together. The _three_ of us. I love Hermione, but I love you too. I want to know why exactly you seem to want this to fail. Why can't we just be happy?"

George scoffed. "No, a better question is why you keep trying to ruin my happiness?"

"Have you gone positively _stark raving mad_? I'd say that ruining your chance at happiness is essentially the opposite of what I've done. Every time you decide to fuck things up, I'm the one who patches them up so you can get on with your life! You mishear Hermione and throw a fit, running off to Mum!"

"Well, _Fred_," George said with an accusatory tone. "I'm not so sure now that I _did_ mishear things. She could very likely have been proclaiming her love for you and you two lied to me so you could continue to play with me and my emotions."

Fred rolled his eyes and shook his head. "I can't help but ask this again. _Are you mad?_ We showed you a pensieve!"

"Just because you're a complete twat doesn't mean that everyone else around you is. Hermione's a fairly clever witch. It wouldn't be very hard for her to alter the memory and try to pull a fast one on a poor, stupid Weasley! I bet you gave her the idea in the first place!"

Fred couldn't help but be confused. What could he possibly have done to cause this? This had quickly deteriorated from trying to make his brother feel better to a bit session of 'Blame-Fred-For-Every-Damn-Problem-We-Can-Think-Up'.

Fred sighed and attempted to walk away but George grabbed his hair and pulled him back. Astonishment was the only thing running through Fred's head. Well, astonishment and pain. Fred twisted, undoubtedly losing some of his hair (he'd need to look into getting that cut, _soon_) but also freeing himself from George's grasp. Fred reached for his wand at pointed it at George.

"_Stupefy!" _As the spell shot from the wand, George seemed to anticipate what was coming and rolled to the side, and the spell bounced harmlessly off of the couch. George hopped up as he rolled, pointing his own wand at Fred.

"_Waddiwasi," _He shouted as he pointed his wand at a bowl of marbles before flicking the point towards Fred. All of the marbles in the bowl flew at Fred, the tiny projectiles pelting his skin. They hit him hard enough that a few punched through his Oxford button-up, undoubtedly leaving bruises on his pale skin. He could feel places where they had broken the skin entirely.

Fred sat heavily on the couch, flicking his wand at George. "_Impedimenta." _With George moving in slow motion, Fred turned his wand on himself, murmuring "_Episky,_" feeling his skin go burning hot and then ice cold, as the wounds healed. After Fred canceled the slow moving spell, they both pointed their wands at each other. Neither of them spoke for the longest moment.

"_Expelliarmus!" _They shouted at once. Twin spells came from twin lips and twin wands, hitting twin bodies. The wands flew from their hands, and George immediately rushed at Fred. George's arms wrapped around Fred's middle, tackling him into a wall. Fred's head slammed backwards, and pictures fell from the wall, slamming into the ground in a crash of broken glass. George grabbed Fred's arms and held them up so that he couldn't fight and used his other hand to slam Fred's head against the wall.

George stopped slamming Fred's head back and instead brought a fist into his cheek. Fred was almost positive that he felt his cheekbone shatter. When George pulled his hand back to hit him again, George brought his head to the side so that George's clenched fist hit the wall where Fred's head had just been. In the shock of the pain, George jumped back, shaking his hand.

Fred hated to fight with George, but if he didn't fight back, this would hurt all the more. Fred brought an elbow in George's diaphragm, George's gasp leaving him in a whoosh. So in retaliation, George grabbed Fred's hair again and pulled his head into the ground.

Fred slammed his knee up into George's crotch and pushed him down into the coffee table. The glass center broke under him, and he lay in the glass gasping for breath as he cupped himself. Fred rushed to the corner and grasped his wand, turning his wand on himself again to try to heal the pain in his head. As he did that, George used that moment to grab his wand which was closer to where he was laying.

Again, the twin spells came from twin lips and twin wands, and hit the twin bodies.

"_Stupefy!" _They both slid to the ground.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Molly Weasley knew she had made a mistake. She'd talked to Ginny and Harry, both of whom had told her that they approved of the relationship between her sons and Hermione. Ginny had made the point of saying how happy the boys were with Hermione, and how she had made them so happy. Now that she knew that Hermione had been with them for as long as she had been, she realized that she was the reason her sons had been acting more cheerful.

Fred and George had not been quite the same since the war. Most of the children had gotten better at dealing with the aftermath of the war. However, Fred and George had had a more difficult time of it, spending weeks holed up in their flat, not talking to the rest of the family.

She missed her sons. Fred and George reminded her so much of Fabian and Gideon, and not just because of the F and G names, and the fact that they were twins. Fred was remarkably like Gideon, with their preference to hide their true emotions behind humor and facades, while George and Fabian were sensitive men who attempted to hide their emotions behind other emotions.

She remembered that Fabian used to act the opposite of how he truly felt, in order to try to throw someone off of his trail. When he was up to his most alarming pranks, he'd pretend to be sick or he'd throw a fit a few days before what ever was going to go down began to start so that he'd throw people off of his scent. Unfortunately for him, the Prewetts were clever, and they nearly always saw through him. But with George... it was much harder to tell how he really did feel. George was much more adept at hiding his true feelings than Fabian ever had been.

Molly stood at the sink, washing the potatoes to make a shepherd's pie for dinner. She could have used her wand to do it for her while she finished knitting, but she didn't really want to. She owed her sons apologies, but most of all, she owed Hermione an apology. When she thought about it, how could Hermione have made her sons the way they were? And when she thought even harder, she couldn't say that her own brothers hadn't had those same proclivities. She could see a bit of the same somewhat unnatural closeness that her brothers had in her sons.

Hermione was a war heroine. She had helped saved lives, her sons' included. And if she was making them happier, then who was she to call an end to it? As she stood at the sink, she realized what she needed to do. She finished the shepherd's pie and cast a stasis charm, deciding to take it over to the boys and Hermione.

She made sure it was wrapped up nicely, and apparated to Diagon Alley. She headed to the boys' flat and opened the door. What she saw, made her drop the casserole.

There was blood. Everywhere. There was broken glass littering the ground, and she could see what looked like...

Oh _god_. It was a body. From the position of the couch, she couldn't quite see who it was, but she could tell that it was a male.

She stood shaking in the middle of the doorway for a few seconds, mashed potatoes, peas, carrots, ground beef, and cheese littering the floor around her feet. She let out a high pitched sob and rushed over to the body on the floor. As soon as she moved past the barrier of the couch, she fell to her knees. It was like a flashback to the First War. She was seeing her brothers laying on the floor, wands just out of reach of their fingertips, bloodied faces and hands, surrounded by carnage.

But this was worse. These weren't her brothers. These were her _sons_. Where was Hermione? Who could have done this?

The floo flashed green and Molly whipped out her wand, pointing it at the fireplace. Hermione stepped forward, and then, seeing what was around her she, too, sank to her knees.

"Oh my _god_! George! Fred! Oh Merlin!" She crawled closer to the boys, her war medical training coming in handy, and rested a hand on each of their necks, checking for a pulse, relieved to find two. She cast a quick diagnosing spell on the boys to check for injuries. Fred had a minor concussion which she quickly fixed, and he also had a couple of broken fingers. He also had a myriad of small circular cuts on his abdomen which she healed as well. George's entire right hand was broken, and had several long gashes in his back from where he'd landed in glass.

After making sure that was the extent of the damage, she went to cast a quick ennervate when a hand reached out to still hers. She gasped, not realizing that there had been someone else in the room with her.

"Molly? Do you know what happened?"

Molly Weasley shook her head slowly. "I was hoping you would. Wait... before you wake them up... I just want to apologize to you. I did some thinking. It's not your fault that my sons chose to be in a relationship with each other as well as you. It's no one's fault, really. Some things are just the way they are, and there was nothing having to do with you that caused that. You did so much for all witches and wizards during the war, but you especially helped my family. I am so sorry Hermione. I am so sorry."

Hermione nodded. Then, pressing her wand tip to a temple in turn, she murmured "_Ennervate."_

George was the first to awake. "Mum? I... oh. _Hermione."_

"Bullocks, George-"

"Hermione Granger!"

"Sorry, Molly. George, what in Merlin's beard happened here?"

George chose to ignore her question and offered up one of his own. "Come to gloat?"

Hermione couldn't help but be confused. Gloat? What the devil could she possibly have to gloat about! She'd only swung round to collect a copy of _As I Lay Dying. _

"Gloat about what exactly?"

George scoffed and sat up, pulling off his torn sweater. "You're 'The Smartest Witch of The Age', I'm not sure why you insist on playing dumb."

Hermione stood, hands on her hips, temporarily forgetting to rouse Fred. Molly sat on the floor looking up at the unfolding drama.

"George Septimus Weasley, I suggest that you tell me just what it is that I'm being accused of."

George leaned back against the couch, one hand to his ribs. He may have been healed, but there was absolutely nothing to heal the ache in a muscle.

"You know _bloody_ well what it is that you did. You made me think that you loved me, and then it turns out you only wanted Fred. What, am I a consolation prize? 'With the heart of one Weasley, get one of equal value free'? "

Hermione slapped him. "How could you? How _could_ you? I thought I made it quite clear how I felt about you."

"Oh," George said, butting in. "You definitely did that."

Hermione stood, turning her back to him. "Molly, let's see if you have any better luck with him than I did. I'll see you Sunday."

And with that, Hermione went back to the floo.

"_Malfoy Manor!"_

-0-0-0-0

Earlier that morning, Hermione had been sitting in a drawing room in the bowels of the manor with that book she had found the previous night, the one with the excerpts from damaged works. She read and re-read the part that she had about the triads, wishing like hell that she had more.

Draco came in, a cup of tea in hand, and set it in front of her. "What are you up to?"

She pushed the book towards him, letting him read for himself. When he turned the page and saw the information about the robes, he flipped to the cover, much like she did. He sighed, and paused for a moment before going to the index at the back of the book.

"This says that this was supplied by a Dettice Leavenethorpe, the writer isn't mentioned at all. That name doesn't sound very familiar to me at all, I'll have to do some more research. I'll see if I can find any more for you."

Hermione set the teacup down heavily, letting out a sigh as she pushed her already enlarging hair from her eyes. "You read the cover yourself, these are the last remnants of things damaged. You won't be able to find more, simply because there isn't more to find."

Draco shook his head. "You forget, I am a Malfoy. The Malfoys personally had a hand in enlarging the inventory of most of these libraries, and although we are cunning businessmen, we are also very greedy. We never would have sold an original to something. Just... simply made an acceptable copy. There are 6 different libraries here in the manor. You go run some errands for a while, I'll see what I can scavenge up."

When Hermione got back much sooner from the Weasley flat than expected, Draco had already amassed all of the work that they had in the manor that had been written by Dettice Leavenethorpe, which consisted mostly of field notes on a study of species of raven as well as a literature of a mermaid crafted chair gifted to Charlemagne.

"However," Draco said with an air that captured Hermione's attention, "For some reason we have a letter that she wrote to a friend. I want you to read it and tell me what you notice."

_Constance,_

_With trembling hand, parched **l**ips and **a**ching breast that I carnally compose this composition to yo**u** my Constance. Please pleasure me. Prick my **d**esires with your perfection, my pr**a**yer. I live entirely for you alone. I want your body. I want it now. Were desire a tea-pot I would be the tea-cosy, you the cup and my dreams the chocolate biscuit. Do you not moist**e**n with longings? Is not the knocking of your kneadable knees? Sheep are no match to your wily ways, my lambkins. Lipidly I long for your lo**v**ely lashings of love. Sob not, suck your br**e**ath. Suck, suck, then suck some more! Nibble me! These g**r**untings are no more than squeals of an**g**uish. But hear them, hear them my impassi**o**ned piglet. I write heatedly with expectant flushments of fleshy paradises. Y**o**ur beauteous belly belies your bountiful bran**d**ishings of boomsene**d** belongings. If this letter be your bone of contention, think of how you could concoct your bone of contentment. There is no use pretending this thing will go away. The jig is up. C**o**-mingle we must, with r**u**tting abandon. To bed! To bed! There is sinning to be had! Let us thrust our outpou**r**ing with mail no more, my magnificent. Let us be carnal. Let us be blunt. Be open with me, as I am with you. Wide open my har**b**our, my refuge, my prison! I have rent open my fe**e**lings so that, however rudely they may be expressed, I have been left nakedly nude of any pretense otherwise. I **c**an write no more, my nib is numb from these outpourings. It lies limp and inkless._

_Always Yours,_

_Dettice  
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Hermione set the page down. "Well, that would appear to be a rather impassioned love letter. It appears to be written between two women, sometime within the past thousand years."

Draco nodded. "Yes, yes. That much is quite obvious. Read it again."

Hermione did, some of the more passionate wording making it hard to just read it through without showing a reaction.

"What am I supposed to be seeing, Draco?"

"Well, look! Some of the letters were formed using harder strokes."

Hermione sighed. "Well of course they were. This is very... passionate. I assume the writer wasn't worried on maintaining a steady quill pressure."

Draco spun the paper around so that it faced her once more, handing her a quill of her own and a parchment.

"Read it a final time. Record each letter when it comes bolded."

Hermione did as he asked.

** C**

Hermione sighed again (she was beginning to realize that she did that entirely too much as of late) and looked at him.

"Lauda Evergood D'Orbec?"

Draco nodded, producing a volume from beneath his robes.

_Unconventional Relationships in the Wizarding Society, or The Care and Keeping of a Heart_

Hermione looked at him, astounded that he had done all this so quickly. "Our dear Dettice may have focused on birds and the like, but she also wrote under a penname. I flipped through this earlier, and realized why. In this book by D'Orbec, she says that witch/witch relationships, while difficult to most beyond friendship, tend to be the least damaging to all of those involved, and that in the eyes of Merlin they were deemed on par with a conventional hetero relationship. If she wasn't trying to convince her lover that it was alright to go farther, I couldn't have found this. And luckily, the Malfoys are all over any manual regarding sexual deviancy. So here. Read away."

Hermione was stunned. Draco had used skills that made her own seem quite paltry, and had quickly maneuvered from one step to another, finding exactly what she needed. She opened the book to the part about triads, and began to read.

**A/N I'm sorry this took so long to get up, and that it's a bit shorter than I usually try to make things, but I wrote this maybe 6 times and lost it each time, and I ran out of the patience to start again. Finally, I did. And here it is. **

**I've finally got that Bill/Hermione fic up that I promised you on New Year's (I am a horrible person). Go check that out!  
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**And as always, Please Review :) I love reading what you guys have to say about the story.  
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	14. Chapter 14

**Hello All! I need you all to know, that activity on this account will be stalled for a while as I edit my stories to make them more appropriate for this website. However, I will simultaneously be editing them to make them good enough to fit the requirements of other archives, and I'll let you know where those are when it's time. Thank you all for your support, and a special thanks to krystal214 for helping me make the decision to begin moving things before FF censors it.  
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	15. Chapter 15

**I need a beta. If you're at all interested, PM me and I'll send you a little test. Must be willing to beta: Fred/Hermione/George, Hermione/Severus, Hermione/Bill and Hermione/Draco. You may notice that there is a new pairing there that I don't have anything posted for. Hm… when might this be happening? You guys know me… probably in a year or three (God I hope not).**

Fred sat at the dining room table, a bag of ice held against his head and drank a cuppa with honey and lemon. There was a jar of Nutella on the table in front of him, and a spoon covered in the stuff halfway to his mouth when Molly left and George walked in.

"Mmm… I remember when Hermione showed us that," he said, stopping at the stove to pour himself a cup of tea and add a splash of milk before sitting across from Fred.

Fred nodded and screwed the lid on, tossing the spoon in the sink. He grabbed his mug and prepared to stand before George grabbed his arm.

"Wait, Fred… I need to talk to you."

Fred frowned and leaned against the counter, a safe distance from George. "Is there anything else you have to say? You've called Hermione a whore. I couldn't care less about what you said about me, but you're going to act like our _Hermione_ can't decide which one of us she wants to keep. To be fair, she was yours first, so I'm not so sure why you're acting like you need to prove yourself. And, I'll have you know, that _you_ were the one who suggested we take the feelings we'd felt for her and make something of it. So by all means, say what it is that you have to say."

"Freddie…" George looked up at Fred, brown eyes swimming. "I can remember last night, but it's like… it's like it wasn't me. Do you remember when Crouch was standing in for Moody, and he was practicing the _Imperious_ on us. Fred… I was like a bystander in my own body. I could taste the words coming out of my mouth, but I couldn't bite them back."

George came to stand next to Fred, slightly curling himself into Fred's side, his head ducked down into Fred's neck and tears began to fall.

"You and Hermione are my life, and I don't know what I'm going to do now that we're taking this break. I swear to Merlin, its like my own mind is trying to ensure that I die alone. I know for a fact that if I don't get you two, then there's no one for me on this planet. Especially you, Fred. You are as much a part of me as my left arm is. I'm so sorry for what happened last night. I didn't mean it, I didn't want it to happen. But try as I might, I just couldn't stop the words from coming out."

Fred snaked his hands into George's hair and pulled his head up, using the hem of his sleeve to wipe the tears from George's face. He placed a kiss to George's forehead before pulling George in tight in a hug.

"Oh, Georgie…"

George began to sob, huge heaving gasps as he clutched at Fred's sweater, trying to pull him closer. Fred ran a soothing hand up and down George's back, pressing another kiss to his face, this time to his temple.

"It'll be okay, George. It will. I promise."

~.~.~.~.~.~

Hermione was sprawled across a settee, a glass of red wine in her hand. Draco and Pansy were perched somewhat more gracefully in chairs across from her, a glass of wine for each of them as well. Pansy traced one thin finger around the rim while Hermione nodded along to what Draco was saying from his chair.

"…And then I said, 'If I had wanted a mountain troll for a wife, I'd have married Bulstrode'," Draco said, causing Pansy to laugh.

Her laugh was cut short, however, as one of her hands flew to stifle a gasp and the other went to gently press against her side, her glass falling to the carpet below.

Draco vanished the mess of merlot before he reached an arm over to pluck at Pansy's necklace, lifting the glamour-inducing object from her neck. Once he did, the transformation that came over her was shock inducing.

Her perfectly porcelain skin changed to a sickly yellow color, her black hair fell in limp strings around her dry skin, hollowed cheeks and sunken eyes.

"You're getting worse," Draco murmured, gently placing a hand in the middle of her back, pulling her into his side. "Has he been feeding you? Letting you drink? I haven't seen you this ill in months."

"He hasn't let me eat much in a while, but I've been able to have as much to drink as I need, not since I was late getting home a few nights ago. I'll be all right, though. I've been through worse at his hands."

Draco leapt up, running a pale thin hand through his long blond hair. He began pacing in front of the fire, the other hand still holding the glass of wine. Hermione began trailing her wand over Pansy, checking her for injuries.

"You're malnourished, but I'm sure you already knew _that_. You don't have any broken bones, but you've got some really wicked bruises on your ribs. I'll need to fix those if you want to be able to get back to normal fairly quickly. You'll probably have some bad pain for a while, yet."

"You shouldn't _have _to have dealt with worse, Pansy. You're a beautiful young girl and you're with a complete and total berk and you could drop dead at any minute because you can't get away from him."

"Draco, you of all people know that if I leave him he will _kill_ me. Do you want that? Would you rather I just died now?" she asked, her eyes beginning to water.

"You're dying already, Pansy!" he shouted. "It's only a matter of time before all of the complete _shit_ he does to you is going to add up and you're dead anyway!"

Draco flung his glass into the fireplace stalking towards the desk and whipping out a map of Muggle London. "I am going to kill him," Draco said with a chilling calmness. "I am going to kill Quentin Morgan before he kills you."

Pansy whipped her wand through the air, the map on the desk shredding into bits.

"Hermione, we're going to need some bandages. I hope you've got some in that bag of yours, because in any moment disaster is about to break out," Pansy said, wand at the ready.

"What on Earth are you going on about?" Hermione asked, making no move to find her extendable bag that was still packed full of medical supplies.

Pansy stood, quite obviously favoring one leg, her slightly hoarse voice rising louder than Hermione could ever recall. "If you don't find those bandages now, Draco might possibly die."

Hermione pulled her wand from her robes and called and _accio_'d her bag. As the bag flew towards Hermione's outstretched hand, Pansy limped towards Draco, unbuttoning his shirt.

"Get your hands off of me, you foolish bint," he shouted at her, attempting to push her off of him.

Pansy frowned at him, and shook her head. "Well, that's not very nice, love. Well, sorry about this. You'll thank me later. _Petrificus Totalus._"

Draco fell to the floor, and Pansy finished undoing the buttons on his shirt. "Hermione, dearest, kindly stop gaping and get over here. Your medical training is most certainly necessary right now."

Hermione hurried over and sank to her knees on the rug next to Draco, still able to feel the cold of the marble through the plush carpet. Pansy stood and snatched her own bag from the floor, pulling out a vial. She kneeled back down next to Draco, and waited.

Hermione couldn't help but ask, "What in God's name is happening?"

"Just watch," Pansy muttered, not sounding entirely focused on Hermione. And rightly so. Draco's chest was a myriad of scars left over from the duel with Harry in the lavatories back in school, and as Hermione watched, his porcelain skin appeared to begin to crack along the marks that Harry had left with Snape's curse. Under the women's eyes, the cracks that had begun to appear spread open, and scarlet blood began to flow from the cracks in his flesh. Pansy directed her wand down towards his body and allowed a steady stream of cool water to flow from the tip. Hermione let her eyes drift up his body and realized that his eyes were holding more animosity than she had ever before seen in their grey depths. She let a hand come up and sweep his hair from his face and as soon as her hand touched his skin she couldn't help but jerk it back. His skin was burning hot, and the sheer amount of heat from his should have rendered him unconscious. She looked back down at Pansy who had finished rising the wounds and was rubbing the liquid from the vial into his skin. "Okay, Hermione. I'll need you to wrap that. _Then,_ I'll explain."

Hermione made quick work of bandaging his chest, before sitting back heavily against the front of the couch. Pansy sat next to her, holding her wand loosely, still pointed at Draco's prone form. A quick glance revealed that he'd finally succumbed to unconsciousness, so they were able to remove the spell holding him still.

"This all started about five years after Potter sliced him up in the lavs. Whenever he'd get very distraught over something, his wounds would crack and then he'd bleed. Once we figured out that it was along his scars, we had to do some research. It took us months to be able to get into Snape's things, but once we did we found all this research he'd done on the effects of this curse once he realized that his curse was causing problems years after the fact. He had discovered that after the curse does its damage, it doesn't disappear, it just lies dormant in the body. Then, when the person gets angry, it feeds off of their negativity, filling the person so full of anger that their skin literally can't hold it in any longer. It multiplies the victim's anger and twists it, making even the most benign annoyance into a full blown problem. He had created this potion that is supposed to draw out more of the curse with each time that it strikes. It works, but only when he gets agitated enough for it to break him. He can have little episodes where he's entirely overcome with hatred and fury, although he won't get at bad as he was today. Today was an exception, it been building for months. He should be alright within the hour. But Snape had something else. He had compiled a list of everyone who had ever been struck by the curse. Most of them had died from the effects by the time he was able to do anything about it, but he had managed to save a couple of people. But the thing is, there's another name on the list set to begin experiencing effects any day now, if he hasn't already."

Hermione knew in her heart who Pansy would say before she spoke the name, but hearing it spoken made her knees go weak.

"George Weasley."

~.~.~.~.~.~

Fred Weasley stood at the back of the store, stocking the _Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder_. He knew George was somewhere else in the store, at last sight he'd been sweeping up, a menial task that they often chose to do without magic for its calming, repetitive nature. The bell chimed at the door, signaling someone coming in.

"Welcome to Weasley's Wizards Wheezes, we've got a new batch of Sticky Trainers in. And remember as always, you break it, you buy it." They called out in unison, having agreed on what to say earlier in the day.

The two went back on about their business when a specially modified, shopkeeper's sneakiscope began to go off on the counter. It had been specially charmed by Hermione when they first opened the shop to begin to go off when someone was attempting to steal something. The two owners each set about searching through the store to find where the culprit had gotten off to, knowing that he was still in the store as the charms on the door hadn't flung him into the air and deposited him at their feet.

They found him at about the same time, standing near the bins of Unlucky Dip. His wand was in hand as he shrunk down various items and stuffed them into his trouser pockets. "Put everything back and leave, and I _won't_ call the Aurors," Fred said, casually leaning against a nearby shelf.

George pulled his wand out and twirled it between his fingers, glaring at the man.

"I highly suggest you put everything back and leave, or you'll be finding yourself as a bucket of ingredients for use in some new potion," he said, voice alarmingly cool.

Fred turned to look at him, and was surprised at what he saw. George's eyes looked as though some sort of ink had been spilled in them, as the whites were no longer visible and instead Fred was looking into dark pools.

"You two are those twins who like to bugger each other, aren't you? I read about you in the Prophet, I reckon I did. Hey, what about that bi—"

The man's voice cut off as George's wand hand twitched. The man shuddered and fell silent as a thin stream of blood began seeping from George's left ear. The blood seemed to be thicker, more viscous than any blood that Fred had ever seen, and was tinged with a sort of shimmering darkness and Fred could feel the air around them change. The air itself sounded like static, and the smell of electricity tickled his nose. George lifted his wand at the man standing at the end of the aisle.

"_Interficio."_

Before the spell could leave his wand, another voice came from behind them. "_Petrificus Totalus!"_

George fell to the ground, and whatever effect George had had on the man ended as he shuffled away, calling back "You can bet I'll be taking my business to Zonko's in the future!"

Fred turned to look behind him. "Hermione?"

She paused to give him a smile and a quick kiss to the forehead before uncorking a vial and gently rubbing the potion into George's scars. Fred crouched down next to her.

Hermione quickly recounted the story that Pansy had told her, and gently threaded her fingers through George's long hair, picking the dried blood out of the strands.

"What was that that he was about to curse that man with? I couldn't hear what it was, but it didn't sound familiar."

Fred conjured a cloth and used it to clean George's face. "It sounded like he said… _Interficio, _I think. You ever heard it?"

Hermione took a moment to think before pursing her lips. "It's Latin, like most spells. It's a third conjugation verb, the first principle part of _interficere_. It means _to kill. _I'll need to do some more research, but it seems as though there's more than one killing curse."


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say to you guys, besides I'm sorry, and **

"What was that that he was about to curse that man with? I couldn't hear what it was, but it didn't sound familiar."

Fred conjured a cloth and used it to clean George's face. "It sounded like he said… _Interficio, _I think. You ever heard it?"

Hermione took a moment to think before pursing her lips. "It's Latin, like most spells. It's a third conjugation verb, the first principle part of _interficere_. It means _to kill. _I'll need to do some more research, but it seems as though there's more than one killing curse."

Fred shook his head ran a hand through his hair, cringing slightly when his fingers caught the strands in the places were George had attempted to pull it from the roots, thinking again that he needed to cut it.

"I'm not entirely sure that I understand this, Hermione," he began. "Although, to be fair, you probably paid more attention in charms than I did."

Hermione's demeanor changed slightly, and he was instantly reminded of their school days. "Well, almost anything could be turned into a spell if you have the correct intentions behind it. That's why we can do wandless magic—the words are just to help us funnel our intentions and our magic into our wands—it's also why we tend to use Latin for our spells: that way we can think of the intention, rather than the connotation or denotation of the words that we're using. For the most part, we tend to avoid redundant spells, simply because it's too much to have to remember. But I suppose that there are multiple ways of achieving just about any means, and if he truly wanted that man dead, then there is no doubt in my mind that his magic would have allowed it to happen."

Fred sighed and kneeled down next to Hermione, who was finishing the task of wiping the thick, viscous salve into George's scars. "Can we help him? You said that Parkinson said that people are dying from this… and that's just not an option. I can't live without him, Hermione."

Hermione smiled sadly as she wiped her hands on a handkerchief from her bag and gently smoothed George's hair from his brow, softly laying her wand on his forehead to test his temperature as he slipped into unconsciousness from the effects of the potion.

"I think I have an idea. But we're going to need help and we're certainly not going to enjoy it… and neither will he."

Fred sighed, but nodded anyway. "What do we do from here? Take him upstairs and put him to bed?"

Hermione shook her head. "No. I think we need to get this dealt with as soon as possible. As much as I hate to say this, I think we need to get him to the Burrow and talk to the entire family. I'll call Bill and Charlie if you can get him in bed over there."

Rather than use his magic, Fred hefted George up into his arms and over his shoulder, more than a little bit thankful that he continued to play quidditch as often as he did, and that George had let himself lose a bit of his muscle mass, as Hermione followed closely behind before she threw a palm full of floo powder in for him.

"The Burrow," he called, stepping through with George's weight settled firmly against his shoulder. As soon as the flames died back to red, Hermione fell to her knees and lightly sprinkled them with the same, settling her upper body into the strange chill of the fire.

"Bill, are you in?"

.:.

Twenty minutes later, eight Weasleys—George being upstairs in his and Fred's bedroom with a ward on the door set to alert them if he awoke—two Potters, and a Granger were all seated around the kitchen table.

Molly had just placed the last cup of tea in front her husband when Hermione began to talk, many of the Weasleys curious as to what was going on.

"Here's what I understand is happening with George. I believe that it's the cause of his running out here the other week, and I believe it is what caused the fight between him and Fred last night. It has to do with the _Sectumsempra_ that Professor Snape hit him with during the 'flight of the Harrys'. The curse didn't just cut: it's a parasite that's living inside of him and all but cauterized its only way out. Whenever he is getting too worked up with negative emotions, the curse reopens the wound and his anger coagulates in his blood and they both begin to seep out of the reopened scars. Professor Snape had, according to Pansy Parkinson, created a potion that can draw the curse back out. She did say that unless he starts bleeding from the curse's effects, however, the potion is useless. This is where you'll all help."

She fell silent for a moment and a quiet gasp came from one end of the table, "Mon Dieu!"

Hermione frowned and took a long sip from her tea. "Exactly, Fleur. We need to get him as upset as possible. We need him to be hurt, angry, offended, whatever it takes to get him to his breaking point. You're his family, there's nothing you'll be able to do quite as well as tear him down."

Molly Weasley cleared her throat quietly, and spoke for the first time since they'd sat down. "No, Hermione. We're _all_ his family."

Hermione turned the corners of her mouth up in what could have passed for a smile, and gently nodded her head. "Thank you, Molly."

She hadn't forgotten, but it was in her nature to try to forgive.

"Bill, Charlie, you'll be the most important part of this. I'll need you two to hold him down. I'll be placing a temporary magic dampening charm on the room that'll last for a couple of hours. Pansy gave me more than enough potion, considering the fact that his founds are nowhere near as extensive or as old as Draco's. You two will need to keep him restrained without using magic, and prevent him from fighting back."

"Why is the magic dampening charm necessary?" Percy asked from Arthur's left.

"If he has access to his magic, he could use wandless magic to cause some sort of damage to us or the home. We need him to be unable to fight him, and we need to be unwilling to fight him with anything besides our vitriol. Channel your inner Severus Snape. You all need to think of every single nasty thing that you've ever thought about him, about Fred, and about me. Even if you don't truly hold the opinions, or even if you _do_, it doesn't matter. We need to _hurt_ him, as hard as that may be. As he's bleeding, we're going to need someone to pour cold water over the wound and massage the salve into the skin. Is there anyone who honestly feels as if they cannot manage to bring up enough malice or anger and find some way to channel it towards George?"

Fleur slowly raised her hand. "I would love to be of help to my brother-in-law, but I don't feel as if I really know him well enough to say such hurtful things that would hurt him specifically."

Hermione nodded. "Perfect, Fleur. Then we'll fill as many pitchers as we can find with cold water, and you need to keep it flowing over the scars whenever you aren't rubbing the potion into it. Now, the sooner we can deal with this, the sooner we can help George."

One by one, they all filtered into the living room and set up all of the necessary supplies. Once everything was ready, Fred, Charlie, Ron, and Bill went upstairs to bring him downstairs as Hermione, Molly, Arthur, Percy, Ginny, and Harry all started trying to think up the worst things they could possibly say to George. As his friends and family, they were more aware of his personal fears and insecurities than any one else would be.

"Molly, Arthur, I think it might be best if you two don't participate. There are some things that might get said tonight that I don't think you should have to hear, but we shouldn't have to hold back in order to avoid offending you, either," Harry said quietly, linking eyes with Hermione, who nodded back at him.

Percy chimed in for the first time since arriving. "I agree, actually. I know that it would be easier for him to understand later if most of the things that are said come from us, but you're our parents, and anything that you say to him is guaranteed to cut deeper than anything that any of the rest of us could possibly come up with: you're supposed to love us unconditionally, and I don't think that it'd be as easy for him to forgive you two."

"But Percy—" Molly began.

"Don't, Mum," Ginny said. "He'll already be having a hard enough time trying to forgive you for what happened when Hermione came over for dinner. Don't make this harder and more confusing for him."

Arthur and Molly nodded, and Arthur grabbed their coats from the rack, tugging the front door open. "Come on, Mols. Let's go for a walk, eh? Let's go out to the lake and look at the stars."

Molly reluctantly allowed herself to be eased into her coat and followed Arthur out of the door, closing it behind them as a muted crash sounded from upstairs, and those staying behind heard George begin to yell, "Put me down! Fuck, let go of me you tossers!"

Fred, Bill, Ron, and Charlie all came staggering down the stairs, a twisting and flailing George held fast as two held him arms and two held his legs. They forced him into a straight backed wooden chair and Bill stood behind him, pulling his arms tightly behind his back as Charlie kneeled by his feet, arms wrapped tight around George's shins.

"What are you all doing? Let me go!" George shouted as he tried to shake his brothers off, his eyes dark and cloudy. "I said _let go_! What the fuck is going on?"

Everyone stood, no one wanting to be the first to make a move.

"I asked you a question! What can't any of you answer me? Why is the fucking _mudblood _here?"

And with that, the mood in the room shifted, and Hermione stood up straighter, quickly grabbing Fred's hand and striding to stand directly in front of him.

"You were right, George. You were nowhere _near_ good enough for me. Fred and I will be getting married, _without you_, because I've realized that Fred is all that I need to be happy."

The skin of George's scars began to crack and redden, but did not yet start to bleed as he tried to get free again.

This time, Fred spoke. "You were a plaything, _Georgie_. You were a fun way to keep myself amused while I waited for something better to come along. You have no idea how often Hermione and I would slip off to another bedroom once you'd gone to bed and laugh at you. We'd laugh at the way you'd believe us when we'd say, "We love you, _Georgie,_" or the way that you'd believe Hermione when she'd arch her back and call you 'baby'. You're an idiot to think that we ever loved you."

The blood had begun to flow freely from his ear, and Fleur immediately set to work rubbing the potion in to the seeping flesh, only to begin to flush it with water again when the force of the blood began so much that the thickness of the potion could no longer keep it back.

Ron stepped into George's field of vision and crouched down to be at eyelevel.

"I hated you because Hermione chose you over me, but know I realize that I fucking pity you. She's a slag, mate, and you have to live with the knowledge that you had my and Fred's sloppy seconds. Look at the way she's been looking at the others. She might move on to Percy for his intellect, to Bill for his ability to perform intricate spell work, or to Charlie for his ruggedness. What do you have? Absolutely nothing, besides a disgusting claim to desire the flesh of your own brother. Are any of the rest of us safe? Are you going to come after Ginny next? You're disgusting, but no more disgusting than she is."

Ron stepped back out of George's field of view and let out a shaky break, making eye contact with Hermione and mouthing 'I'm sorry'. She nodded as George began to scream.

"I knew it, Ron was right about you. One Weasley wasn't enough, and neither were two. What'll be next for you, huh? All of the men willing to take you at once?" Fleur let out a quiet gasp and faltered in her motions, but one quick glance at Hermione had her resolved and rubbing the potion back into the wound, glancing down quickly and her husband who frowned at her and learned forward. "_S'il vous plaît aidez-moi Dieu,_" he whispered before placing his mouth close to George's right ear.

"That's not what's going to be next for her, _Georgie_, it's already happened. Just close your eyes, can't you see it? Can't you imagine those curls buried in Percy's lap as Charlie, Fred and I all take our turns with her delightful little body? I'm sure you're familiar with the way her body clutches at you as you're trying to pull out? How about the way her nails scratch at your back when you hit just the right spot deep inside of her?"

George threw himself forward in the chair, nearly making Bill slam his head into the back of the chair. Charlie leaned harder on his legs and Bill reached up to pull George's head back to allow Fleur better access to his head.

"_Je suis désolé_", Bill whispered to his wife. "_Je suis vraiment désolé."_

Fleur nodded as she continued to smooth the potion into her brother-in-law's wounds.

"_Je sais, l'amour, je sais."_

"_Shut up!"_ George yelled, thrashing in his seat.

Hermione stepped closer forward. "What is it, _Georgie_? You don't want me but other people can't have me? Even Percy is more useful that you are."

George shook as more of the blood streamed from his head. For a quick moment, Hermione found herself thinking about how difficult it would be for her to get the bloodstains out of her shirt before she mentally relegated the task to Molly and refocused on the current course of action.

Percy stepped forward and made a move, somewhat surprising all others involved.

"All my life I had been so excited to finally have a little brother, but looking back, Fred would have been enough. There's absolutely nothing that you bring to this family that Fred hasn't already done cleverer or faster. George, you're a waste. What's the point in calling yourself a Weasley?"

As George recoiled in shock, Ginny immediately stepped in to take a shaking Percy's place. "What kind of man are you? You cry, and you sob, and you moan about how rough your life is. You're a stupid little girl, not a man. Real men settle down and find themselves wives, they don't lounge around in business with their brothers and cry about their feelings. What is the matter with you? Can't you show some initiative? Why does everyone else have to bend over backwards to make decisions because _poor little Georgie_ can't make them for himself? _What makes you so special?_"

George began to cry, still lightly pulling at the brothers holding him prone in the chair.

"Stop it, _stop it!"_

Harry cracked the bones in his neck and stepped forward, kneeling to look him in the eye. "We didn't expect you to survive the war. You were a pawn. Nothing made any of us think you had any chance of surviving, and you have no idea how thankful I am that you were flying nearer to Severus Snape than I was that night. Thanks for taking that curse in my stead; I needed to live, at all costs. Who cares if you'd make it through or not? You're a Weasley, and not even one of the good ones."

A thick, black clot pressed its way through the crack in George's skin where his left ear once was, and George himself slumped in his chair, his eyes finally clearing.

"…What? Where… Fred? Hermione?"

Fred and Hermione quickly moved to kneel on either side of George, but Bill and Charlie didn't release their hold on his limbs yet.

"What's happening? Why are they holding me down? How did we get to the Burrow?"

Hermione lightly shushed him, placing a hand on his damp forehead to check his temperature. Is skin was no longer searing hot, but was instead slightly cold and clammy.

Fred pressed a kiss to his right temple and smoothed back his long hair, letting Bill and Charlie release him as he began to massage George's shoulders, undoubtedly sore from having his arms pulled behind his back for so long.

"George, that curse you were hit with the night you all polyjuiced yourself to look like Harry… there were some adverse affects that are only becoming known now. It's why you've been so temperamental and quick to anger. We were able to get to affects out, I believe, but it wasn't pleasant. Do you really not remember what happened?"

He shook his head slowly, wincing as he did. "No, I remember being at work and then I remember being here. Can I get a healing draught or a pain potion? My ear hurts."

Hermione nodded and grabbed the appropriate vials from her purse. "We had to say many things tonight, George. None of them were true, that's the thing that you have to know. I don't know if you'll ever be getting your memory of tonight back, but regardless or not you need to know that the things that we said to you tonight were purely designed to hurt you as much as possible in order to excite the remnants of the curse enough to force you to react. Keep that in mind. The things we said tonight were only to get your emotions to the level that you would react."

"What kinds of things could you have possibly said that would require that much prefacing? I don't remember you saying any of them, so what does it matter?"

Hermione shook her head and kissed his forehead. "It matter because one day you might remember," Fred said. "And on that day, I don't want you to be overcome with these memories and no idea as to why we would say such horrible, horrible things, not only about you but about those closest to you. Our biggest priority was to hurt you, George. The more hurt you were, the faster we could get the curse out of you. I don't think that any of us are proud of what we said tonight, but it was especially hard for us to say because of how much we care about you. We abused the trust you put in us and took your fears and concerns and warped them to say the most hurtful things we could think up."

George sighed low in his throat and gently turned his face into Fred's neck. "I want to go home. Can you two stay with me tonight?"

Hermione and Fred nodded after looking at each other, and Bill headed for the front door. "I'll go get mum and dad so that you three can say good-bye before you leave."

Fred helped pull George to his feet and wrapped his arms around his waist, helping him stand, his whole body aching with a ferocity that he hadn't thought possible. Ginny, Charlie, Harry, Ron and Percy and came in close, hugging him in turn and whispering their apologies to him.

He pulled Hermione in to his chest, bending his head down to kiss her head but frowning and pulling back when he saw the mess that had become his shirt.

"What happened to me?"

Hermione gently shushed him and squeezed his midriff a bit tighter. "I'll explain later. Fleur, please put that handkerchief you were using to wipe his face in a jar, I want to take it with me."

The front door opened, and Molly, Arthur, and Bill all came back in. Bill quickly glanced up at George before letting his eyes fall back towards the floor.

"I'm sorry, mon frère. Please forgive me."

George shook his head. "Really, I don't remember what's happened since we've gotten here, but based on what's going on I'm not so sure that I want to."

"You don't," came several different voices at the same time.

.:.

Hermione, Fred, and George were all laying in Fred's bed under the plush quilt an hour later, George in the middle.

"Was tonight really that awful? What happened?"

"I don't feel ready to go into all of that yet, and you still need to rest. But as hard as it may have been for us, I can guarantee that any discomfort of ours paled in comparison to yours. Trust me, love, when I say that I hope you _never_ have to regain your memory of tonight."

Long after Fred and Hermione had both fallen asleep, George lay there in the dark, wondering exactly which words his family could have spoken to leave them so apologetic. He couldn't decide which would be worse, continually living with this curiosity or actually knowing. Perhaps in the morning he'd ask Hermione or Fred to share with him via a pensieve.

But on second thought, perhaps not.


End file.
